“There are well over 172,000 prisoners in the state, and there are talks of releasing at least 30,000 of them early [because of the budget deficits],” he said. “Data has shown, and repeatedly confirmed, that there is an approximately 70% recidivism rate among these prisoners.
“This bill would’ve solved that problem — not all of it, obviously, but at least the felonious illegal immigrant portion, which happens to be about 10% of the prison population.”
Critics of the bill said it would deputize state officers to enforce confusing and frequently changing federal immigration law, and that it was prone to abuse.
Joseph Villela, a state policy advocate with the Coalition for Human Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, invoked the case of a mentally ill American citizen who was falsely deported to Mexico.
“This man was not able to articulate he was a U.S. citizen because he doesn’t speak English fluently,” he said. “In this case, the officer perceived that the person was undocumented, and proceeded to process his deportation…We’d rather see this money go to the prevention of crime, instead of just breaking up families.”
Tran said, however, this bill would merely require state employees to check a prisoner’s status through a simple administrative process, and turn over any information they find to the federal government.
“It’s a real red herring to say that these officers are being trained to determine the immigration status of these convicted criminals, who will be handed over to the Department of Homeland Security,” he said. “They’re being trained to check, not for enforcement; they aren’t going onto streets, knocking on doors to check immigration status. No one is deputized.”
