Albo: "Cleaning Up" South County

There is an interesting discussion going on over at Not Larry Sabato regarding a new bill championed by Del. Dave Albo that requires local sheriffs to run immigration background checks for every person who is foreign born (e.g. Alexander Hamilton (Virgin Islands), John McCain (Panama), Del. Dave Albo's grandparents (we think we read somewhere that he's third generation, etc.) if they happen to be arrested. Note that it's not limited to people who are actually suspected of being illegal or who can't produce papers - it is any person who is foreign born.

In his quote to the paper, Del. Dave Albo proudly claims:

With our new law, these people who are here illegally should be afraid of living anywhere in Virginia right now," said Del. Dave Albo (R-[Abuser Fees]), who helped write the law and chairs the state's crime commission. "If you're here illegally, it's not any scarier to live in Prince William than in any other county." Va. Jails to Report Foreign Inmates, Washington Post, A1 (July 28, 2008).

NLS makes the point that Del. Dave Albo is taking the classic Republican tack of ruling by fear. Lovely.

The rest of the article makes you wonder what in the world Del. Dave Albo was thinking. First, these "small government fiscally responsible conservatives" clearly thought that this expansion of government power would be cost effective right? All of the training, incarceration expenses, extra staff, computers, etc. was worth it, right?

Let's look at the stats in the article. In 2007, Virginia jurisdictions made 12,073 reports to ICE resulting in 694 detainers. That's a 5.7% hit rate. Now, Prince William County says they're spending $1.5M extra per year doing this and reported 800 of those 12,073. If Prince William's hit rate was 5.7% that equals 46 detainers (800x5.7%) or they are spending $32,617 per illegal immigrant actually detained ($1.5M/46) (note that says detained, not deported).

How many more non-illegal immigrant felons do you think $1.5M of new police officers could catch say EVERY WEEK?

Now here's the funny part - ICE can't even tell them what happened to the 694 people that got detained. We're not kidding here.

See - if ICE actually requests a detainer, all ICE does is take them (detain them), process them, and release them with a bond to appear for their hearing (it's in the Washington Post article if you read the whole thing). Why? ICE really isn't interested in investing a lot of resources in deporting a guy convicted of drunk in public. In other words, no one knows how many people were actually deported as a result of this program. The article talks about how the Prince William County Police Chief is very frustrated because no one can tell him this. Albo Must Go would wager that Del. Dave Albo could probably get more people to return to their country if they just handed them $50,000 and a plane ticket instead of all of this convoluted nonsense.

This law then clearly wasn't motivated by budget considerations. It wasn't designed as a means to actually deport people (if it was, then spending $1.5M to deport a couple dozen people per year is legislative malpractice). So then Albo Must Go asks Del. Dave Albo - what is all of the grandstanding about this new law that treats all foreign born people, legal or illegal, different from people like Long Island born Del. Dave Albo really all about?

Albo's comments about trying to "scare" people who "live" here make that clear - he doesn't want certain people to live here - those affected by his bill (foreign born people). There are other labels for that kind of attitude. Judge for yourself.