Illegal Aliens in Federal, State, and Local Criminal Justice Systems: Summary

iIllegal Aliens inFederal, State, and Local Criminal Justice Systems Summaryby Rebecca L. Clark and Scott A. AndersonThe Urban Institute2100 M Street, NW, Washington, DC 20037OVERVIEW OF PROBLEMWith the rising concern about the numbers and impacts of illegal aliens in the UnitedStates — as evidenced by the sweeping passage of Proposition 187 in California, the immigrantprovisions in 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act(PRWORA), and Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996(IIRIRA) — criminal illegal aliens have become a subject of particular focus. These individualshave not only entered or resided in the United States without the knowledge or permission of theU.S. government, but, while here, they have also violated the laws of the nation, its states, ormunicipalities.At state and local levels, the costs of arresting, prosecuting, sentencing, and supervisingcriminal illegal aliens has become a major issue. Six states have filed suits to force the federalgovernment to reimburse them for criminal justice costs associated with illegal aliens. They have argued that it is the federal government's responsibility to keep illegal aliens out of this countryand to expel illegal aliens who have gained entry, and that, therefore, the federal governmentshould offset any fiscal impacts that these illegal aliens have on lower levels of governmentthrough direct reimbursement. None of these suits has been successful. The federal government has taken some steps to reimburse states for some of the costsassociated with criminal illegal aliens. Section 510 of the Immigration Reform and Control Actof 1986 (IRCA) authorized the Attorney General to reimburse states for the criminal justice costsattributable to undocumented persons. No appropriations for illegal aliens were made until 1994,when the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act (Public Law 103-317 or the CrimeAct of 1994) authorized $1.8 billion over six years to reimburse states for criminal justice costsassociated with illegal aliens. The State Criminal Alien Assistance Program (SCAAP) wasestablished to allocate and distribute these monies.This research describes the characteristics of illegal aliens in the criminal justice systemat federal, state, and local levels. A goal of this project is to be as nationally representative aspossible, given the limits of existing data sets. The federal-level analysis is based on two datasets, from the Pretrial Services Act Information System (PSAIS) and the U.S. SentencingCommission (USSC), which are representative of individuals involved in the federal criminaljustice system. (The PSAIS contains information on defendants charged with federal offenses iiwhom pretrial service officers interview, investigate, or supervise. The USSC Monitoring DataBase contains information on criminal defendants sentenced according to the Sentencing ReformAct of 1984.) The state-level analysis is based on data collected for the SCAAP on the sevenstates with the most illegal aliens, Arizona, California, Florida, Illinois, New Jersey, New York,and Texas (Warren 1997). All of these states except Illinois filed suits to force the federalgovernment to reimburse them for criminal justice costs associated with illegal aliens. Thelocal-level analysis is limited to one site, Cook County, Illinois, and is based on data collectedfrom the INS District Office and the Cook County Department of Corrections.KEY FINDINGS1. How many illegal aliens are there in prison and elsewhere in the criminal justice system?USSCYIn 1995, there were 4,081 illegal aliens sentenced in federal district courts, 11 percentof the total sentenced.PSAISYAs in the USSC data, in 1995, illegal aliens represented a high share (14.4 percent) ofindividuals entering the Pretrial Services Act Information System (PSAIS).SCAAPYThe INS identified 14,262 illegal aliens among state prisoners in 1995 fromCalifornia, Texas, New York, Florida, Illinois, Arizona, and New Jersey. INS wasunable to determine the legal status of 48 percent of foreign-born prisoners inthese states.YCalifornia contained a disproportionately large share of illegal alien state prisoners,71 percent of illegal aliens identified by the INS, which appears to reflect its largeshare of the resident illegal alien population and the relatively large share of thestate’s submissions for which the INS was able to determine immigrant/legalstatus.Cook CountyYThere were 228 bookings of individuals identified as illegal aliens by the CookCounty Department of Corrections (CCDC) between 1994 and 1996. iii2. Between 1991 and 1995, how and why has the number of illegal aliens entering thecriminal justice system changed?USSCYThe number of illegal aliens sentenced in federal courts increased by 167 percent ,compared with 13 percent for citizens. The number of legal aliens declined by 18percent over this period.YThe share of defendants in federal courts who were illegal ali