Impact of Illegal ImmigrantsCounty Jail Survey Report 2008

In 2007, Tom Craddick, the Speaker of the Texas House of Representatives, issued a series of interim charges. Included among them was a joint charge to both the House Committee on Corrections and the House Committee on County Affairs. These committees were charged by the speaker to:
Study policies and procedures related to illegal immigration and border security of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, county probation departments, and local and county jail facilities, and make recommendations to improve coordination with international, federal, state, and local authorities.
Upon receiving an information request from the House Committee on Corrections, the Texas Association of Counties (TAC) created a survey based on a set of questions received from the Committee. After editing the survey, originally designed for probation departments, TAC consulted with representatives of the Sheriffsʹ Association of Texas to finalize the questions. On Jan. 28, 2008, e‐mail messages were sent to approximately 240 county sheriffs. Due to problems with invalid e‐mail addresses and similar issues, 13 of those messages were never received by the sheriffs. On Feb. 11, a reminder message was sent to those who had not responded to the original request. The survey was closed Feb. 20, 2008.
Seventy counties were able to complete the survey by the time it closed.
The survey was designed to investigate the impact of illegal immigrants on county jails. As a result the report focuses on county jails, county sheriff departments, and adult illegal immigrants. The impact of illegal immigrants on the state prison system or adult probation is not covered in this report. Juvenile illegal immigrants are also not covered in this report, however, it should be noted that those juveniles with criminal allegations become the responsibility of local juvenile probation departments or the Texas Youth Commission until their cases are resolved. At that point, state and local entities coordinate with federal services to address the needs and placement of juvenile illegal immigrants.
Executive Summary
In order to estimate the impact of illegal immigration on county sheriff departments or, more specifically, the county jails in those departments, it would seem to be necessary to have a good understanding of the number of illegal immigrants which pass through these departments. Unfortunately, for a number of reasons, most estimates suffer from one or more deficiencies. As this survey points out, tracking of the status of immigrants in county jails is problematic at times. As a result, the numbers, whether counts of illegal immigrants or total costs, are reported as estimates rather than exact measures.
There were estimated to be 3,711 illegal immigrants in county jails at the time of the survey. Extrapolating from the survey counties to all counties results in an estimate of $60,749,900 spent statewide by county sheriff departments in FY2007 to deal with illegal immigrants. This cost estimate is more or less in line with previous costs estimates produced by the state. The real issue, however, is not their accuracy but the fact that both estimates indicate that the cost to counties of dealing with illegal immigrants in their jails runs into the tens of millions of dollars statewide.
In FY2007, the federal government, through the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program (SCAAP), awarded county governments in Texas less than $10 million for handling illegal immigrants.
In addition to looking at the cost to counties, the survey also asked about their relationship with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Many counties noted a strong, professional relationship. Others were less happy with ICE. The issue appears primarily to be with staffing levels and the lack of local support from ICE.
Counties noted that the response time for ICE can be excessive outside of regular business hours and that the distances that ICE officers must travel to get to the county jails often restricts their interaction with local jails. However, counties that have had problems working with ICE appear to have found a solution by working with local Border Patrol agents. While this solution may or may not be ideal, it does work for those counties.
How can the state help? As might be expected from the above discussion, counties requested additional funding to cover the expense of dealing with illegal immigrants. However, the request was not always for additional funding for themselves; often the request was for additional funding for ICE.
One comment suggested that the state could use its influence to lobby for additional funding for ICE. The possibility that the state could push for additional ICE funding is quite attractive given the number of comments found throughout the survey on the lack of staffing at ICE, lack of local ICE offices, etc.
A related issue is the need noted by many respondents to improve the process whereby immigrants’ status is identified or verified. Respondents identified improving this process as one of the two top challenges in dealing with illegal immigrants in the county jails.
However, the most common challenge noted came in regards to language. Many counties noted language skills, primarily Spanish, as their most pressing need. Closely related to the language issue, three respondents also listed social, cultural and religious challenges in dealing with illegal immigrants.
Other requests were for
improved coordination with ICE;
a statewide policy on illegal immigration; and
granting local law enforcement officers authority to arrest and detain illegal immigrants.
The following is an excerpt from the survey, which can be found in its entirety at: www.county.org/resources/countydata/products/2008_CountyJailSurveyReport_Final.pdf.
Legislative Department, Texas Association of Counties May 20, 2008