The Washington, D.C., region received more than $4 million in federal reimbursements for jailing illegal immigrants, according to data from a Justice Department audit that also found undocumented inmates released back into the United States were re-arrested an average of more than four times each.
The audit took a sample of 100 illegal immigrants who were arrested by state and local law enforcement agencies and found that73 had been re-arrested within two years, the report said. Those 73 inmates accounted for 429 arrests ranging from traffic violations and trespassing to assault and robbery, or an average six times for each individual.
The data was too small to extrapolate to the entire criminal illegal immigrant population, but “the rate at which released criminal aliens are re-arrested is extremely high,” wrote Justice Department Inspector General Glenn Fine.
D.C. Department of Corrections Director Devon Brown said he was surprised by the rate reported in the study.
“This issue places tremendous demands on our law enforcement community and significantly weighs heavily on its resources,” Brown said.
The District jailed an average of 77 illegal immigrants a year over the last three years. The District of Columbia received $82,000 in reimbursements in fiscal year 2005. To be considered for the reimbursements, jails submitted the names of illegal immigrants who were jailed for more than four days and who had committed a prior felony or two misdemeanors.
Montgomery County received $964,000 for jailing illegal immigrations, nearly as much as the $985,000 that Maryland received.
Montgomery County corrections chief Art Wallenstein said hundreds of inmates each year are identified as illegal immigrants by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials, and twice a week ICE agents pick up inmates at the jail.
Arlington County received $236,000 in fiscal year 2005 to cover the cost of jailing nearly 600 illegal immigrants out of a total jail population of 7,500 inmates. Fairfax County received $709,000 and Virginia received $1 million.
Rosemary Jenks, of Numbers USA, a conservative immigration organization based in Arlington, said she wasn’t surprised by the Justice Department findings because the results matched a study conducted by the Government Accountability Office two years ago that found that criminal illegal immigrants had been arrested an average of nearly eight times each.
“It’s pathetic, and we’re paying for it,” Jenks said.
