What Is the Cost to the California Criminal Justice System of Illegal Immigration?

Added Info for Pros and Cons About the Situation

Immigration will always cause some issues in the host country. One of the major problems, at least in today's America, it the continued scarcity of some types of jobs. People who are fine with the influx of immigrants, whether legal or illegal, when economic times are good will bemoan the problem when jobs are scarce. The reason that the people from Mexico come the United States, for the most part, is that they have more economic opportunity in the United States than they did in Mexico. The issue now is that there are not as many jobs as there have been in the past, so the jobs that citizens did not want before are now in demand by the general populace of legal residents. Although this is not necessarily true (the amount of people willing to work in fields and other more menial jobs taken up by legal and illegal Mexican immigrants is about the same as it was prior to the economic downturn (Genesco Migrant Center, 2011). The statistics show the 81% of these migrant farm workers are foreign born and 77% of those come from Mexico. That figure has not changed in the past two decades by any appreciable amount. That means that the argument that these individuals are taking jobs is relatively false. Of course, these individuals do other jobs besides that of a migrant farm worker, but even these are usually unskilled labor that is left to fringe workers. It is not true that they take the jobs of American citizens.

Of course there are some issues that have to be addressed such as the fact that illegal immigrants are a burden to the state and federal economies. One of the main reasons that there are controls regarding the number of people who enter the country every year is because the government looks at what jobs are available, whether the healthcare systems can handle the influx of people, and whether there will be an undue burden on the tax payers already in the United States (AILA, 1999). The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) a division of the Department of Homeland Security is tasked with making sure that all of the laws regarding the number of immigrants allowed to be in the United States legally is enforced. The number of people allowed in caps at approximately 620,000 people per year because of the restrictions already mentioned (AILA, 1999), but there are millions more that come in each year by illegal means. Because of the financial burden these individuals are prosecuted if found, but there is not enough active enforcement to catch them all, and there are also not enough enforcement officers.

It is difficult to think of any pro arguments for illegal immigration, even the fact that many are farm migrant workers. If illegal workers did not have those jobs, they would be filled in some other way. But once the individual is on the United States, if they have brought children, many believe that it is cruel to penalize the child for the sins of the parents. Many children are brought to America illegally, they being illegal themselves because they were not born in the U.S., and they are educated and cared for by the U.S. system. If the U.S. is willing to take care if these individuals until they are 18, it does seem cruel to deport the child once he or she reaches and arbitrary age. The U.S. system has flaws, and this one should be addressed. To an extent it already has been by a presidential order, but this may not meet the rigor if the courts.

Cost

Of course the greatest con to the entire equation is a financial one. More and more immigrants are using the facilities that should have been reserved for legal residents, and this is costing the taxpayers in California billions of dollars each year. This cost comes in the form of medical treatment that cannot be denied to any person by law (Blair, 2011). Education in the state of California is free to all citizens whether legal or illegal also and cannot be denied to those who wish to complete high school. There are many financial issues that will be discussed in further sections of this report.

Inmates -- State and Federal, housing them

Many people who illegally immigrate to the United States either have a checkered past, or they commit crimes once they get into the United States. To put a personal face on some of the crimes, it is more likely that an illegal immigrant will commit a crime to procure food or other item they believe they need than for any other reason (Chapman, 2010). Unless, of course, violating immigration laws is itself added into this mix. It probably should not be a part of the statistic because that crime is already known. However, it is true that these crimes cost the government (whether state or federal) money. Note: this issue was already extensively covered in the other paper, but you could add the facts presented above to that.

Borders

The United States has two primary borders since the ocean borders can be discounted. The border with Canada is much larger than that with Mexico, but it is a relatively stable border across which people are allowed to cross without much trouble. The border with Mexico is much more difficult to police in actuality because the people in the South are not as able to cross the border legally, so they must use illegal means to gain access to the U.S. Also, the people who cross the border between the U.S. And Canada generally want to return to their home of record because the fiscal situation in Canada is much better than that of Mexico.

The border with Mexico is subject to a large number of illegal crossings each year which reached a peak of approximately 1.6 million in 2000 (Kocherga, 2011). However, that number has declined by 80% in just over a decade (Kocherga, 2011). The number of illegal aliens reportedly residing in the United States has also declined. The reasons for this are seen to be from multiple causes. Enforcement of the borders has been enhanced a great deal because of better technology such as GPS and other innovations that help locate people crossing the border and popular border crossings. The fiscal situation in Mexico has also gotten better to some degree which can account for another piece of the decline. However, since the largest signs of a decline have been since 2006, many experts now believe that a lack of employment opportunities in the United States is having an impact also (Kocherga, 2011). It is interesting that because people in the United States were not as able to hire laborers, the laborers themselves were not able to find jobs and returned to Mexico.

Another reason is that there are fewer places for illegal aliens to cross the U.S.-Mexican border than there were previously. Many called for a fence to be built between the two countries believing that this would curtail the problem, but that never materialized because of cost. However, technology has built its own wall. The border is more difficult to cross because enforcement officers can use night vision, GPS, better vehicles, computer tracking software such as that used in police departments and other advances to make it more difficult to cross into the United States. This virtual wall is also guided by satellite imagery which can track hotpots and feed the data back to a central location.

Education and Health care: these were both discussed at length in the other paper.

What do you do with an illegal immigrant that commits crimes

Illegal immigrants from other countries that commit crimes are sent back to their countries of origin, but the United States has a history of being much more lenient. In the first place, the majority of people who cross into the U.S. illegally maintain a low profile because they do not want to be sent back to their country of origin. Thus, they are not a problem except for the fiscal problems associated with healthcare and education for which citizens are paying. However, when a person is found to be in the U.S. illegally, they are most often processed for deportation immediately. This does not mean that the individual will be returned immediate, just that they are processed. In most cases these people are held in detention in the United States for long periods of time while their cases are reviewed. There are instances of the illegal being allowed to stay in the U.S. But these are very rare. For the most part, the person is eventually returned to their country of origin.

Illegal immigration crime status

Illegal immigration is a crime, but of itself, it is not regarded as a major crime. That is why it sometimes takes a very long time for people to be returned to their country of origin. In 2007, the ICE deported more illegal criminals (their term for all illegals caught), 160,000, than it ever had (Elder, 2008). This was up from just 64,000 in 2006, but it shows how the ICE campaign against illegals has ramped up. ICE officials believed that they would be able to deport more than 200,000 individuals in 2008 (Elder, 2008). These numbers reflect the public's growing dissatisfaction with the way that the problem was being handled, and a more concerted effort on the part of the department.

Stats from ice on coming back in to America

There is no exact figure regarding the number of people who are deported and then attempt, or succeed in, crossing the U.S. border a second time. A popular figure bandied about in some studies is 15% (U.S. Immigration Support, 2008)., but this has never been conclusively proven. The fact is that many immigrants do attempt to reenter the United States after they have been returned to their home countries. It has been found that many who are returned will try to sneak back over the border the next day.

Percentage of gangs and crime are illegal immigrants

One author talked about the prevalence of illegal immigrants in Hispanic gangs in Los Angeles in an article for the City Journal. She reported that police reported that more than 60% of the members of two major gangs in the city were illegal immigrants and the figures could be much higher (MacDonald, 2004). The two gangs are connected to drug cartels in Mexico and Columbia, and they control much of the drug traffic in Los Angeles. She also reported that "In Los Angeles, 95% of all outstanding warrants for homicide (which total 1,200 to 1,500) target illegal aliens. Up to two-thirds of all fugitive felony warrants (17,000) are for illegal aliens" (MacDonald, 2004). The reason that this is allowed to happen is that cities that have large Hispanic populations often have "sanctuary policies" which discourage officials from checking the immigrant status of individuals suspected of crimes (MacDonald, 2004). This means that the city governments and their departments are complicit in ensuring that the illegal problem is allowed in their cities because the officials are afraid of the Hispanic community and its voting power.