Gregoire bills feds for inmates

OLYMPIA – Tired of picking up most of the tab to incarcerate nearly 1,000 illegal immigrants who’ve been convicted of crimes, Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire on Monday sent a $49.7 million bill to the federal government.

Under the U.S. Constitution, Gregoire said, imprisoning illegal immigrants is the responsibility of the federal government.

“We have to hold them accountable and responsible for what, by federal law, they’re supposed to be doing,” she said.

Yet under the Department of Justice’s State Criminal Alien Assistance Program, Washington’s federal reimbursement for such prisoners works out to just $4.75 a day.

“I don’t know how you can suggest that you can incarcerate an individual at that rate,” Gregoire said in a morning press conference at the state Capitol. The state’s actual imprisonment cost, she said, is $74.44 a day per inmate. The $49.7 million bill covers the 2005 costs and projected 2006 costs.

The problem is particularly acute because Washington is spending tens of millions of dollars a year to house its prisoners in other states or in rented cells in county jails. Washington last month had 964 inmates in out-of-state prisons, and 828 at in-state county jails.

Gregoire sent a letter Monday to U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, asking the federal government to “fulfill its legal duty to reimburse Washington State taxpayers for the cost of carrying out this federal function.” Alternatively, she said, the feds are welcome to take custody of the state’s 995 illegal-immigrant prisoners.

For years, the governor said, the state has simply been absorbing those costs.

“I can’t put these people free on the street,” said Gregoire.

Arizona and California are also seeking more federal prison reimbursement, she said. Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano last year billed Gonzales nearly $118 million for unreimbursed prison costs. The Justice Department’s response was that the program didn’t have enough money to pay all of state and local governments’ costs for such prisoners.

If the federal government doesn’t pay more, Gregoire said, she and the other Western governors will turn to Congress for help.

In Idaho, which incarcerates 493 criminal illegal immigrants, officials said they’d heard of no plans to make a request similar to Washington’s. Idaho Department of Correction spokeswoman Melinda O’Malley Keckler said the state spends $44 a day to incarcerate each prisoner.

Across the country, there was no immediate response from the federal Office of Justice Programs. A man who answered the agency’s news office phone Monday said everyone was away at a conference.