What happens (deportation, prison transfer, incarceration, etc.) to immigrants in the United States illegally who commit crimes in the United States?
General Reference (not clearly pro or con)
The U.S. Code - Title 8 - Chapter 12 - § 1231 (accessed Aug. 23, 2007), entitled "Detention and Removal of Aliens Ordered Removed," mandates:
"(A) In general:
...the Attorney General may not remove an alien who is sentenced to imprisonment until the alien is released from imprisonment. Parole, supervised release, probation, or possibility of arrest or further imprisonment is not a reason to defer removal.
(B) Exception for removal of nonviolent offenders prior to completion of sentence of imprisonment:
The Attorney General is authorized to remove an alien in accordance with applicable procedures under this chapter before the alien has completed a sentence of imprisonment ...in the case of an alien in the custody of the Attorney General, if the Attorney General determines that the alien is confined pursuant to a final conviction for a nonviolent offense (other than an offense related to smuggling or harboring of aliens)... and the removal of the alien is appropriate and in the best interest of the United States; or in the case of an alien in the custody of a State (or a political subdivision of a State), if the chief State official exercising authority with respect to the incarceration of the alien determines that... the alien is confined pursuant to a final conviction for a nonviolent offense the removal is appropriate and in the best interest of the State, and submits a written request to the Attorney General that such alien be so removed."
The U.S. Government Accountability Office (USGAO), in an Oct. 1998 report entitled "Criminal Aliens - INS' [Immigration and Naturalization Service] Efforts to Remove Imprisoned Aliens Continue to Need Improvement," stated:
"...several
major laws were passed between 1986 and 1996 that provided for the
initiation of removal proceedings for certain criminal aliens while they
were incarcerated, expanded the types of crimes for which aliens
could be deported, and sought to facilitate the expeditious removal of
those aliens found to be deportable...
Currently, INS [U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service] may release deportable criminal aliens, including
aggravated felons, from custody only if the aliens were lawfully
admitted to the United States, or were not lawfully admitted to the United
States but the designated country of removal will not accept the aliens,
and the aliens satisfy the Attorney General that they will not pose a
danger to the safety of other persons or of property and that they are likely
to appear for any scheduled proceeding."
The U.S. Department of State (USDOS), in the section entitled "Prisoner Transfer Treaties" on its website (accessed Aug. 8, 2007), offered the following:
"Under U.S. law [U.S. Code - Title 18 - Chapter 306 - ยง 4100(PDF) 46 KB] foreign nationals convicted of a crime in the United States, and United States citizens or nationals convicted of a crime in a foreign country, may apply for a prisoner transfer to their home country if a treaty providing for such transfer is in force between the United States and the foreign country involved. The United States has 12 bilateral prisoner transfer treaties in force in Bolivia, Canada, France, Hong Kong S.A.R., Marshall Islands, Mexico, Micronesia, Palau, Panama, Peru, Thailand and Turkey.
In addition, the United States is a party to two multilateral prisoner transfer treaties: The Council of Europe Convention on the Transfer of Sentenced Persons (Strasbourg Convention), [and] The Inter-American Convention on Serving Criminal Sentences Abroad (OAS [Organization of American States] Convention). The Convention entered into force for the U.S on June 24, 2001. [it] is in force in the following countries: Brazil, Canada, Chile, Costa Rica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, the United States and Venezuela."
Margaret H. Taylor, JD, Professor of Law at Wake Forest University School of Law, and T. Alexander Aleinikoff, JD, former Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, in a 1998 Carnegie Endowment publication entitled "Deportation of Criminal Aliens: A Geopolitical Perspective," wrote:
"Criminal aliens' first contact with the INS now usually comes while they are incarcerated in a state prison. Through an enhanced Institutional Hearing Program (IHP), states cooperate with the INS to commence deportation proceedings for foreign-born inmates before they get out of prison... As the Institutional Hearing Program becomes more effective, state prison systems increasingly are releasing foreign-born offenders directly to the custody of the INS. This process ensures that many more criminal aliens are removed from the country. It also might motivate states to release inmates who would otherwise remain incarcerated in exchange for immediate deportation.
Criminal aliens who have been sentenced to a term of incarceration in the United States cannot be removed by the INS until they are released from prison. But the new immigration law explicitly authorizes the INS to deport nonviolent offenders who are not otherwise eligible for release from incarceration when early removal 'is appropriate and in the best interest' of the United States or the state where the alien is incarcerated."
Illegal Immigration Around the World: 13 Countries Compared to the United States
