Editorial: Bed quotas for immigration detainees a costly flub
Illegal border crossings are in decline, but Homeland Security officers nonetheless have a detention-bed quota they must meet. Private prison companies are reaping the benefits, and taxpayers are being shortchanged.
If that scenario sounds distorted, well, it is. Criminal justice systems around the country are turning to alternatives beyond incarceration to lower costs. But Congress is blocking such innovations when it comes to immigration.
The quotas were imposed in 2009, when Democratic Sen. Robert Byrd, chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security, inserted language into the agency’s budget that called for 33,400 beds to be filled by detainees at any given time. Republicans have increased the quota to 34,000. In the Obama administration’s 2106 budget, the quota is raised by 40 more beds.
The bed quota forces Homeland Security to detain nonviolent people who are not a threat to the public. The policy is inflexible, expensive and sometimes inhumane.
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http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2015/apr/16/editorial-bed-quotas-for-immigration-detainees-a/
It's not a flub, it's a feature....
