Wmicentral.com – 07/03/2009

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Reps. Ann Kirkpatrick, Gabrielle Giffords and Harry Mitchell capped their push to restore funding for the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program with a major legislative victory June 17.

As the amendment they co-sponsored to restore funding to SCAAP passed the House with bipartisan support. The Arizona lawmakers have been leading efforts to block the cuts to SCAAP in the FY 2010 budget. The program is supported with $400 million this year, but was set for elimination in the president’s budget for next year.

It was partially restored in the Commerce, Justice and Science Appropriations Bill currently before Congress, but remained 25 percent short of this year’s funding level.

The amendment sponsored by the three members fully reverses the cut and restores $100 million back into SCAAP, keeping the program at the FY 2009 level.

“This is a victory for the folks on the frontlines, fighting to stop cross-border trafficking and illegal immigration,” Kirkpatrick said. “Our law enforcement needs more resources, not fewer, and congressional leadership has recognized that. Now we can focus on launching a sustained, comprehensive effort to secure our borders and keep our communities safe.”

“As long as local law enforcement agencies in Arizona are doing the federal government’s job of securing our border, it is critical that they get compensated for it,” Giffords said. “This is the fair thing to do and Congress clearly recognizes that.”

“This is excellent news for states like Arizona that have seen their law enforcement communities burdened by the federal government’s inability to secure the border,” Mitchell added. “Their manpower and their budgets have been stretched thin and the SCAAP funding has been critical to helping ease the financial strain.”

When the Obama Administration first announced its intention to terminate SCAAP in May, Kirkpatrick, Giffords and Mitchell wrote a letter to key House lawmakers such as Reps. David Obey and Jerry Lewis, the chairman and ranking member on the House Appropriations Committee, urging them not to cut the program.

That letter earned widespread support, and the Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice and Science responded to their concerns by restoring $300 million.

However, this was just three-quarters of current funding levels for a program that was already cash-strapped, and earlier this month the Arizona members wrote another letter to congressional leaders calling for them to continue funding SCAAP at $400 million. The amendment that passed was proposed in response to these concerns.

In 2008, the Arizona Department of Corrections received $12.8 million from the federal government to house the 5,600 criminal illegal immigrants who were in state prisons. That is only 10 percent of the $124 million the state spent to house illegal immigrant inmates that year.

ADC estimates it will spend $128 million in 2009 to house, clothe, feed and provide medical care to illegal immigrant inmates, accounting for over 10 percent of their $978 million budget at a time when the ADC is facing severe cuts.

Currently, Arizona’s state prisons hold 6,100 illegal immigrants – 15 percent of the state’s inmate population.