Speech #1050094879

Mr. Speaker. H.R. 1493 expands nationwide the successful prearraignment identification programs currently run by the Immigration and Naturalization Service at the city of Anaheim and Ventura County jails. This means that 100 such programs will be phased in across the United States over the next 4 years. Under these programs. all criminals booked into a local incarceration facility are identified as either citizens. legal aliens. or illegal aliens by a fulltime officer of the Immigration and Naturalization Service who has access to the nationwide INS database. The INS officer is detailed to the facility. Those identified by INS as illegal aliens are deported. This is the most effective way to identify criminal illegal aliens and ensure they are deported and not released back into our communities. Criminal illegal aliens are an outrage three times over. First. they break our immigration laws by crossing the border illegally or by overstaying of a legitimate visa. Second. all too many of them put our communities at risk by committing crimes. Third. they impose burdens on the taxpayers with the costs of their incarceration in American jails. The program expanded under H.R. 1493 has worked very successfully in Anaheim and in Ventura County. In its first month the program identified 33 percent of the arrestees at the Anaheim city jail and 66 percent of the arrestees at the Ventura County Jail as criminal illegal aliens. Think of it. 33 percent of those arrested. illegal criminal aliens. And 66 percent of those arrested. criminal illegal aliens. Think about that. The President needs to renegotiate the criminal alien transfer treaties so we can deport them if they are convicted and serve time in their own country.