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.
Seems immoral to dump convicted felons on another unsuspecting population just to empty Texas prisons for economic reasons. Locally, we see such aliens frequently return to the area (illegally) and then be subject to new prosecution. Shame, shame.
Also seems like it would erode public respect for the government's promise to protect a community. And it would lead to sentence inflation as jurors realize that the illegal alien is likely to serve less time than the legal citizen who commits a crime.
Do they really think the federal government is going to hire more people to transport illegals to the border? They will just sit in jail until the current authorities can come, and we've discussed this in previous threads--when you don't live on the border that can take a long time.
How is that a stimulus? The federal government is our money. It does not stimulate anything to make our government spend more money. UGGG. That's just a back door way to clear out prisons, or push an agenda of letting illegals out of prisons even if they've committed serious crimes. I prosecute at the border now, and I can guess from what I've seen so far that if they've been here and broke the law already, and got let out of prison and dumped at the border and told to behave, they will just be back that much quicker committing new crimes and go right back to prison!
My (new) husband just got back from McAllen working for DPS aircraft. They were working there and made a video of some of the things that were occurring at the border. Scary. If the population of the US saw how BOLD these drug traffickers were, they would not be so happy to send convicted felons to Mexico assuming that the "border" will keep us safe from them. Boats, tunnels, backpackers.
This is a bad idea. Bad idea. Can't say it enough.
Posts: 526 | Location: Del Rio, Texas | Registered: April 17, 2006
Classic beaurocracy-speak to say that creating a government policy to release people early from prison will cause that same government to spend money building a place to hold the people released until they can be deported (and caught again upon return). Yay! It's a win-win, right?
Doesn't sound like much of a deterrence. "If you're illegal, commit a crime! Go ahead! The worst they'll do to you is deport you, and you can come right back like nothing has happened.!"
Posts: 515 | Location: austin, tx, usa | Registered: July 02, 2001
I agree Jane. We haven't seen anything yet. Wait until TDCJ starts releasing all of the Texas inmates after having added additional good time credit. Juries are fed up with giving large sentences only to see the Defendant reappear at the local grocery store. Citizen's safety should be our first priority.I am worried sick about the 10-15 inmates that we have been told will be released every day of the week from Region 4 here in Beeville. Anyone else want 50 discharged inmates and/or Parolees in their little town every week?
Posts: 334 | Location: Beeville, Texas., USA | Registered: September 14, 2001
I have a novel idea. How about doing parole eligibility for violent and habitual offenders like the feds handle the BOP? If you behave exceptionally well, say on a 20 year agg or habitual offender (yes, even if non-violent)sentence, you might get 2 years total off of your sentence.
Meaning you would serve a meaningful portion of your sentence. I know many defendants, particularly when the State Jail "day for day" prison began in the 1990's, who didn't want the certainty of a "day for day" sentence, even though the max term of that sentence was only 2 years.
If Senator Lucio wants jobs for his district, permanent jobs, then he should support the above idea. Lots of counties would love to have a prison in their area, for the jobs and economic boost it provides.
And the drop in he economic and personal costs of crime would drop massively. I know it's an expensive proposal, but we could have less crime if we just keep the bad guys locked up for most of the sentences that they are being given.
Posts: 2578 | Location: The Great State of Texas | Registered: December 26, 2001
