We can probably all agree that prison for criminals is a good thing. Keep the criminals off the streets, and we’re all a little safer. In fact, traditionally, conservatives think that there should be harsher punishments for many crimes, including parole violations. That’s one reason it’s surprising that our Republican President has a plan to empty out some of our prisons.
The average prisoner in federal prison in the United States costs the taxpayer $31,286 per inmate, with New York holding the record at an average cost of $60,000 per prison inmate according to The New York Times. So, in an effort to trim the fat, if you will, President Trump is proposing that we empty some of those prison cells in part of his immigration overhaul program.
Via Lifezette:
Nearly a quarter of the inmates in federal prisons were born outside the United States, and more than half of those have final deportation orders, the Department of Justice said Tuesday.
The foreign-born prison population as of March 25 totals 45,493, or 24 percent of all federal inmates. Of that group, 3,939 now are American citizens. That leaves 41,554 inmates who remain citizens of foreign countries. Some 22,541 of them, or 54.4 percent, have final orders to be deported when they complete their sentences. Another 33.4 percent, 13,886, are under investigation by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents for possible deportation.
I’m sure there will be all kinds of exceptions made, but let’s just say for the sake of argument that all of the foreign-born inmates were deported. That would save the taxpayers around $1.4 billion dollars in a single year. If, just for fun, you multiply that by 8 (since we hope that Trump stays in that many years) this plan alone could save the American people about $11.4 billion dollars. Not to mention, the deportation of a whole lot of criminal illegals.
It is probably a shock to many Americans that we are maintaining that many proven foreign born criminals, but that’s what the left’s bleeding hearts and broken calculators will get you.
(H/T: The Gateway Pundit)