By Bethany Peterson/editor-in-chief
Texas parole officers can now deport illegal aliens convicted of both non-violent and violent crimes who are incarcerated in Texas prisons by paroling them on the condition they are deported to their home countries.
About 11,500 of Texas’ 156,000 state prisoners are not citizens of the United States, said Bryan Collier, Texas criminal justice department’s deputy director.
Fifty-nine percent have been convicted of violent crimes, 15 percent of drug crimes, 8 percent of property crimes and 18 percent of “other” crimes.
Those who favor deportation argue it could save the state and taxpayers as much as $100 million annually if even 5,000 foreigners were deported.
If all the illegal convicts were deported, an estimated $213 million could be saved, they say.
But deportation doesn’t mean that the convicts will stay out of the U.S.
These convicts would be set free in their own countries, free to attempt another illegal entrance into the U.S. and possibly continue their criminal activities.
If they do return and commit other crimes, taxpayers will be stuck paying the bill to find, arrest and prosecute these criminals all over again.
Another specific concern about criminals deported to Mexico is the possibility of compounding the present border strife if deportation is not done correctly.
Mexican officials have complained that criminals deported after completing their sentences in the U.S. were simply bused across the border and compounded the violence in border towns.
An immediate solution is for the parole board to parole only those convicted of minor, non-violent crimes.
Before total deportation can provide the taxpayer any safety as well as monetary relief, border security must reach an effective level.
Until then, since the proposed savings, even if all the non-citizen convicts were deported, is only 7 percent of the state’s $3 billion prison and related programs budget, the savings hardly seem worth the risk of having 6,000 proven violent people walking on anyone’s street, especially ours.
