Email, Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies, Center for Immigration Studies, July 20, 2016

9:31 a.m.

I write afresh to ask if you have insight on a claim by Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas that one third of federal inmates today are illegal immigrants.

This USSC table has been offered as backup. It seems to show 38 percent of individuals sentenced in fiscal 2014 were illegal aliens. Am I reading that right?

It also looks like the vast bulk of those individuals were sentenced primarily for violating federal immigration laws. Any insight into the particular laws at issue?

The Bureau of Prisons advises that about 22 percent of federal inmates of late are non-US citizens and, it says, it also doesn’t track immigration status. Any guidance on why nearly 40 percent of the individuals sentenced in fiscal 2014 were illegal aliens yet the overall inmate population is as described?

Other recommended sources?

Thanks.

g.

(Vaughan)

1:05 p.m.

On the first USSC table, sorry, I’m familiar with this data, but I’m not seeing the 38%.  Did you mean to refer to a different one?  It says 42% of all those sentenced were non-citizens.

On the offenses, 29% of those sentenced were for immigration violations.  This is not surprising.  Immigration violations are federal violations, so they have to be dealt with in the federal court system if they are not handled by the agency or the immigration courts, which are administrative.  The majority of the immigration offenders enumerated here are being sentenced for either illegal re-entry after deportation (a felony) or crimes such as fraud, trafficking or smuggling.  There are many thousands of people who commit these crimes, and they are very easy to prosecute, so they are like the bread and butter of some of these federal court districts.  Many of the offenders will do short sentences, but some will do a few years.  This is the consequence of not having better border security and interior enforcement to deter them.  As a result, the federal courts can be like a revolving door for these offenders.

I’m a little surprised at the BOP number, last time I looked I thought it was more like 26 or 28 percent, but that might be a more recent number.  Well, they don’t publish anything on immigration status, it definitely is tracked, because deportable aliens in the federal prison system are usually deported fairly efficiently.  I think that the main reason the BOP number is a smaller percentage is because of the shorter average sentences.  I’m sure BOP gave you a percentage that was true on a specific day, probably Jan 1 or Oct 1 of the year.  With immigration offenders, there is high volume but shorter sentences, so faster turnover, which translates to a smaller percentage of the average daily population or the population on a specific date.  The BOP percentage typically measures the stock, not the flow.  You should ask the BOP for the total number of individuals incarcerated throughout the year and the total number of aliens incarcerated throughout the year, and I strongly suspect that aliens will be a much higher percentage than 22% or even 28%, because of the higher turnover.

Regards, Jessica

Jessica M. Vaughan

Director of Policy Studies

Center for Immigration Studies