Colorado to the feds: Show us the money
Alan Gathright, Rocky Mountain News
Published March 19, 2007 at midnight
The State House passed a unanimous resolution today telling the federal government to quit stiffing Colorado on millions of dollars in prison and jail costs for illegal immigrants.
"We were promised these funds," fumed Rep. Buffie McFadyen, D-Pueblo West, who sponsored House Resolution 1008 with Rep. Paul Weissmann, D-Louisville.
But while state prisons and county jails are bursting with prisoners, Weissmann said, the Bush administration failed to pay $5 million owed last year to the state and 22 Colorado counties.
"All we’re asking is to be reimbursed 10 cents on the dollar for housing criminal aliens," McFadyen stressed, noting that the real cost of housing illegal immigrants who have been convicted of at least one felony or two misdemeanors is estimated at $43 million annually.
"No one disagrees that we need to support our troops (in Iraq), but at the same time we shouldn’t do that at the cost of not securing our own communities," she said, referring to the $2 billion a week being spent to on the Iraq war. "The federal government's job is to secure the borders, we're left with the fallout from the federal government not doing their job."
State Attorney General John Suthers has already sued the federal government to recoup money spent on illegal immigrants, including for education, incarceration and health care, under a mandate passed by Colorado voters last fall.
Suthers warned that the Congress and the Bush administration have failed to safeguard U.S. borders despite the post-Sept. 11, 2001, terrorism threat. But even he isn’t hopeful about winning against the feds in court, given that at least six states failed with similar lawsuits.
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