AUSTIN, Texas (AP) - State officials again are considering pursuing deportation for foreign nationals serving time in Texas prisons for nonviolent crime, according to the Austin American-Statesman.
The newspaper reported in its Sunday editions that the increase of the population of foreign nationals in Texas prisons and a looming state budget crisis next year is prompting another look at deportation. However, some have raised concerns that deported criminals might be allowed to go free in their home countries.
That's prompting some state officials to consider deportation of a percentage of the nonviolent offenders who are foreign nationals.
State Sen. Eddie Lucio, a Brownsville Democrat, supports a plan to move many of nearly 11,400 foreign nationals out of Texas state prisons by turning them over to U.S. immigration officials.
"It could mean a lot of jobs, economic development, because the federal government will have to find a place to put them before they deport them," he said.
Federal Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials declined to comment. However, the American-Statesman reported that other states, from Florida to California, are considering similar proposals.
Oklahoma passed a law last year to have some nonviolent inmates deported who were in the United States illegally. State Rep. Randy Terrill, a Moore Republican who heads the Oklahoma House committee that oversees that state's prison system, says the plan has worked so far.
"It turned out to be a win for us," he said. "We're saving taxpayers the cost of incarcerating illegal aliens who never should have been in this country to start with."
However, some Texas state lawmakers worry that deported felons would merely slip back into the state.
"It shouldn't be a reward to get out of prison early in Texas just because you're in the country illegally," said state Rep. Jerry Madden, a Plano Republican and former chairman of the state House Corrections Committee. "If you deport them and they come back and commit another crime, nobody wins."
But Oklahoma Department of Corrections spokesman Jerry Massie one thing might deter inmates deported from his state from returning to the United States illegally.
"If they get caught back in the United States, they come back to Oklahoma and serve their whole sentence," he said. "From what we can tell, that has proven to be a big deterrent."
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Information from:Austin American-Statesman
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