Study shows the costs of undocumented immigrants on border counties’ court and law enforcement systems
By Maria Sprow

A report published earlier this year by the U.S./Mexico Border Counties Coalition paints a picture of the growing costs incurred by border counties due to the inability to stop crimes related to undocumented immigrants. The study shows a trend toward rising violence throughout the region, resulting in higher costs to local court and law enforcement systems.

“The costs have continued to go up, to $1.23 billion over an 8-year period,” from 1998 through 2006, said David Austin, a government relations consultant for the Border Counties Coalition who was previously successful in working with the National Association of Counties to get $1.45 billion for reimbursing local governments, county hospitals and other medical providers for their expenses related to caring for indigent illegal immigrants.

Zapata County Commissioner Jose Emilio Vela, who serves as president of the Border Counties Coalition, said a similar victory is necessary when it comes to court and law enforcement costs incurred by counties when illegal immigrants are arrested after they commit state crimes.

“There are more immigrants that are being apprehended, and by apprehending them you have to incarcerate them. They have to be fed, they have to be given medical attention. In addition to that, some of these criminals, they have to go to court and the local tax payers have to pay for court-appointed attorneys, and we don’t get reimbursed for that,” Vela said. “The money we spend on incarceration of the immigrants could very well be used on other things that we need, like infrastructure, water, sewer. Our sheriff’s department takes a big share of the county budget.”

According to the study, Undocumented Immigrants in U.S.-Mexico Border Counties: The Cost of Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice Services, Zapata County does not have any official ports of entry, but the four justice of the peace precincts and constables estimated that about 62 percent of their budgets are spent on crimes related to undocumented immigrants; the sheriffs office estimated 40 percent, and the indigent defense office estimated 55 percent of its workload is spent defending illegal immigrants in both criminal and civil cases. Other Zapata County officials, including the district clerk and attorney and the county clerk and attorney, estimated the impact of undocumented immigrants on their offices was around 15 percent.

“Without this study, it was very hard to show what the real problem was,” Vela said.

Fighting for Federal Dollars

The Border Counties Coalition was formed in 1998, with the expressed purpose of gaining fiscal resources from the federal government to reimburse the region’s costs when it comes to undocumented immigration, among other goals. The Coalition believes those costs should be reimbursed since border security is a federal responsibility, and counties would not have to incur costs of providing undocumented workers with health care, detention or protection if the federal government was able to meet its responsibility.

Currently, there are three federal programs that help reimburse counties for some costs related to undocumented immigrants: the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program, which reimburses for some detention costs; the Southwest Border Prosecution Initiative; and the Federal Reimbursement of Emergency Health Services Furnished to Undocumented Aliens. The majority of the funding comes from the SCAAP program, which was started in 1995 and had the support of then-Texas Gov. George Bush, who stated “if the federal government cannot do its job of enforcing the borders, then it owes the states monies to pay for its failure.” However, as president, Bush has sought to terminate the program every year since 2003 because it “has no criminal justice goals and cannot demonstrate results. …

Reimbursements do not reduce the incidence of crime committed by criminal aliens. …

The immigration status of many suspected aliens cannot be verified.” So far, Congress has supported counties and SCAAP continues, though the funds have dropped from $585 million in its first year to as low as $200 million; the awards from 2007 totaled just over $377 million.

That money is spread out through all counties across the nation. “Right now the budget is so strained, it’s very difficult to just get any money,” consultant Austin said, adding that it’s likely whatever funding the Border Counties Coalition secures for undocumented immigrant costs will be spread out among all counties, not just the border area. The study recommends that the federal government modify SCAAP to include illegal immigrants who are detained but not convicted and increase the prosecution funding. It also recommends the creation of a new program to reimburse other departments, including probation, clerks, juvenile services, law enforcement and adjudication.

“Through SCAAP we are probably getting reimbursed 10 cents to the dollar,” Austin said. “These are costs that are incurred because an undocumented person comes in to the country and commits a crime. If the federal government accepted their responsibilities with respect to border security and immigration, they would step up and pay for that.” The study was able to show that the $4.7 million in SCAAP reimbursements to border counties for fiscal year 2006 covered only 9 percent of costs for detaining undocumented immigrants.

“Undocumented immigration and its costs are an emotionally-charged issue because there is strong evidence that U.S. efforts to control it are failing and the consequences of this failure have negative impacts that ripple through border counties,” the study assessed. A Fight for Security Border counties across the state are facing higher and higher criminal justice costs related to undocumented immigrants, due in part to increased border violence created by human and drug smugglers, but also because of spillover from drug wars and organized crime rings inside Mexico. Immigrants apprehended for crimes are not deported, but face criminal prosecution.

“Many sheriffs testified that the border is much more violent than it was in 1999-2000, when border impacts on counties were first documented. As border enforcement gets tougher, drug and people smugglers become more desperate. Many incidents of immigrant-on-immigrant crime ... leading to bloodshed and murder (were recounted).

Sheriffs secure the crime scene, investigate and transport; counties also autopsy and bury bodies,” wrote Tanis Salant, the lead investigator for the study. Salant is a professor at the University of Arizona School of Public Administration and Policy.

“Smugglers dig tunnels under fences, disguise themselves as Mexican military and resort to rock and Molotov cocktail throwing, lethal guns and paintball guns. Smugglers are also involving undocumented immigrants crossing to seek work in their activities. Smugglers use them as decoys to divert federal agents from cocaine shipments worth billions of dollars. They have seized control of favorite entrant routes, transforming themselves into more diversified crime syndicates.”

The technology used along the nation’s border is impressive, a combination of high-tech sensors and cameras. Volunteers monitor parts of video footage by utilizing streaming video over the Internet; cameras utilize seismic, magnetic and infrared technology to detect vehicle and human movement from miles away. There are remote-controlled aerial vehicles equipped with electro-optic sensors that can read license plates and identify vehicle occupants from 15 miles away, then transmit that information to ground stations.

“New strategies directly lower the incidence of illegal crossings and drug and people smuggling where new strategies are employed, but the game of entering the United States illegally simply shifts in response,” the report states. “Moreover, crossers with criminal intent become more desperate and violent toward law enforcement, shooting guns, throwing rocks, smashing vehicles, sometimes with lethal effect. Where one avenue for crossing is pinched off, another in a more remote location opens up.”

Counties along the border tend to have lower household incomes, per capita incomes, tax bases and general funds, and also tend to be larger in area but smaller in population, the study said. They are home to large ranches and Native American tribes. Typically such a county does not have a large tax base, so having to respond to the increased violence weighs heavily on their budgets.

The study sought to determine the percentage impact on the workload of each department providing services to undocumented immigrants and the cost of the county general fund of providing those services. The report looked at expenses for patrol, investigation and administrative services in the sheriff’s office, detention, lower and trial courts, county and district attorneys and clerks, indigent defense, adult probation and juvenile probation and detention.

Many responses were based on field experience, except for hard data kept in detention and probation. Many crimes go unsolved, resulting in disproportionally high sheriffs costs compared to other departments. Salant found that the total cost to Texas’ 15 border counties was estimated at $75.4 million in fiscal year 2006. On average, Texans living in border counties spent $33.47 a year each to fund law enforcement and criminal justice services for undocumented immigrants. Services for and to illegal immigrants have the largest financial impact in Hudspeth County, where the per capita cost was $378 in 2006.

Terrell, Zapata, Culberson, Kinney and El Paso have the next highest per capita costs, ranging from $125.55 to $47.51. In Hudspedspeth County two railroads are used for human and drug smuggling. The problems are shared by their neighbors in Culberson County. The Hudspeth County Sheriff’s Office estimated that more than 80 percent of its budget goes toward undocumented immigrant activity.

The county is small, with only 3,320 residents, and its jail has only 120 beds, 75 percent of which are used for federal prisoners. Of the remainder, 33 percent are normally filled with illegal immigrants. When asked how the county would better use the $1.2 million spent on undocumented immigrants in 2006, Hudspeth officials responded that they need an ambulance and more ways to help move interstate traffic along after automobile wrecks.

In El Paso County, where crossing the river is dangerous due to concrete channels and turbulent waters, officials said the most costly problems associated with illegal immigration were undocumented immigrants committing crimes against other immigrants. Undocumented immigrants also negatively impact farmers and ranchers in the area by leaving trash behind while crossing private property, sometimes poisoning the cattle that eat the trash and by trampling crops. Officials there said the problems cause farmers and ranchers to be fearful of going out on their properties at night, since they do not know who is trying to make their way through. Many farmers and ranchers can’t afford lawyers, so they don’t file complaints, officials said.

Departments there are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on illegal immigration. The Sheriff’s Office spends more than 25 percent of its overall budget on problems arising from undocumented people. The money is spent by deputies waiting for the Border Patrol to pick up a van full of smuggled immigrants, or on investigating auto thefts, burglaries and drug smuggling. The impact to the county’s jail was higher, at 34.6 percent. Both the County District Attorney’s office — shared with Hudspeth and Culberson counties — and the El Paso County Public Defender’s Office estimated that 35 percent of their budgets directly go toward undocumented immigrants. The County Clerk’s office estimated that it spends about 13 percent of its budget on criminal filings related to undocumented immigrants.

In all, the report concluded that “each citizen of El Paso County, then, has paid $271 in extra local taxes to process criminal undocumented immigrants” since 1999 and “the cost (to fund services for undocumented immigrants) has increased by nearly 380 percent in seven years.”

There are other costs, too, officials noted. “The biggest drain on the (Val Verde) budget has been conducting mental health and retardation tests on detained undocumented immigrants and then transporting them to hospitals, which require two deputies, one vehicle and eight hours of driving. In the process, the sheriff’s department has lost two vehicles to collisions with deer on the highway,” the report stated.

Val Verde County is not a popular place for illegal crossings, due mostly to its physical barriers, terrain. Border Patrol in the area utilizes remote control motion detectors and speedboat and plane surveillance. Still, violence involving undocumented immigrants has increased there. “It has become dangerous to attempt water rescues,” the report stated. Murders of undocumented immigrants have cost the sheriff’s office time and money, having to pay to investigate the crimes, recover the bodies, perform autopsies and medical examinations, and DNA analysis for body identification (what about burials?).

“Drugs are known to come across the Rio Grande in Terrell County and cross the mountains into Val Verde County by backpack. Both Terrell County and Zavala County are ‘overrun,’” the report states.

There were 7,989,980 legal crossings into Val Verde County in 2005 and 4,546 apprehensions. Officials there estimated that the total cost of providing law enforcement and court services related to undocumented immigrants took up about 25 percent of its overall general fund in 2006. The Sheriff’s Office estimated about half of its budget was spent on undocumented immigrants; the jail’s impact was at 23.2 percent. Court-related departments including the clerk’s office, the county and district attorney’s offices and the justice and the peace and constable’s offices all estimated the costs were at about 2-3 percent, suggesting that many of those jailed never make it through the court system there.

The overall expenditures mean Val Verde residents have each paid $255 since 1999 on crimes related to undocumented immigrants. “The opportunity costs of these funds, according to the governing body’s office, include more healthcare services, better highways and county roads, more programs for child abuse, women’s shelters and child care and more financing for the Citizen Emergency Fund,” the report states.

Mavericaverick County is home to a busy trade route. The Mexican cities of Piedras Negras and Acuna help sustain the county’s tourism-based industry. According to the report, there were 9 million legal crossings there in 2005 and 16,918 apprehensions – between 100 and 200 people a night.

“In 1999, for example, the typical entrant would be looking for work in the county, carrying a little bag of canned food, water, crackers, a can opener and toiletries,” the report states. “Now, ‘wearing Nike shoes, designer clothes, sporting tattoos and no bags of personal affects,’ they come from Piedras Negras to commit crimes. … this type of border crosser does not have the education to be hired. Some of the younger crossers will accept $500 to bring over 500 pounds of marijuana, just to pay their college tuition in Mexico.” The federal government won’t prosecute drug smugglers unless they have at least 500 pounds of marijuana, so many of the undocumented immigrants arrested are prosecuted by the Maverick County Attorney. The attorney’s office gets reimbursed somewhat for the expenses through Southwest Border Prosecution Initiative Funds, but payments can be slow coming. Other border counties refuse to prosecute some crimes.

“Many prosecutors refuse to accept drug cases shifted to them by federal prosecutors. That appears to be an effective policy in lowering costs … but drug smugglers go unprosecuted so there is a negative impact on communities as well,” the study stated.

In Webb County, law enforcement officials reported that the area has become much more violent since 1999. Human trafficking has increased, the number of groups involved has increased, and the groups are using increasingly sophisticated methods of operation, such as GPS systems and satellite phones; the same goes for drug trafficking. More than 19 million people crossed legally into the United States through Webb County in 2006; there were 5,420 apprehensions there.

The Webb County Sheriff’s Office and the county’s Justice of the Peace offices estimated that 30 percent of their 2006 budgets was spent on undocumented immigrants, but only 8.5 percent of the county’s jail beds were taken up by illegal immigrants. Many of those booked into jail are never prosecuted because their crimes were not serious enough. Other offices in the county, including the district and county attorneys and the indigent defense office, estimated that they spent less than 1 percent of their budget on services for undocumented immigrants, while the adult probation office estimated that about 10 percent of its workload, including pre-sentence investigations, involved undocumented immigrants.

“Most undocumented immigrants are deported and granted unsupervised provision,” the report found. “These probationers had gone through the court system and been found guilty. If they return without documentation, they are in violation of their probation; if they return with papers, they must report to the office. Some actually live in Mexico and report to the office anyway.”

The county’s juvenile court center estimated that 40 percent of its probation services and 60 percent of its detention services are devoted to undocumented immigrants.

Hidalgidalgo County officials and deputies painted a picture of a populace that increasingly makes its living from drugs and violence. Many crimes investigated by the sheriff’s office are crimes against undocumented immigrants, such as sexual and aggravated assault against those being smuggled into the country, and it is estimated the smugglers make anywhere from $1,500 to $3,000 per illegal immigrant. Of the 16 homicides investigated by the sheriff’s department in 2006, nine of those murdered were illegal immigrants.

Since illegal immigrants make up a good number of the victims the sheriff’s office deals with, the office estimated that about 50 percent of its budget and resources go toward cases involving undocumented persons.

The Cameron County Sheriff’s Office estimated that 30 percent of its budget and resources were devoted to matters regarding undocumented immigrants, who fill about a third of the county’s jail beds. The District Clerk’s Office estimated that about 25 percent of its defendants were without legal status, while the indigent defense office reported that about 20 percent of its clientele was undocumented. In the county court system, justices of the peace estimated that about 33 percent of its budget is spent on undocumented immigrants.

“Often deputies will pull over a vehicle on a state violation and find 30 entrants inside. Entrants also make Cameron County their destination, and many are apprehended on drug possession, family violence, DWI, stealing or the occasional homicide,” the report stated.

Brewsrewster County spends about 25 percent of its overall general fund budget on crimes related to undocumented workers, including auto theft, rural break-ins for food and drug possession, though the study noted that officials said those who break in to homes for food often wash dishes and leave pesos behind.

Power in Numbers

There’s no question that undocumented immigration is similar to an unfunded mandate passed down on to counties, and not just in the border region. The SCAAP funding is spent nation-wide; only a small percentage ends up going to border counties. The Border Counties Coalition, while working to get more funding for that region specifically, believes it will be most successful in its efforts by pushing for nationwide programs.

“There is always power in numbers,” said Hidalgo County Judge J.D. Salinas. “We are the ones who have to face illegal immigration on the front line, but if we get reimbursed, other counties should get funding too. There are other counties that have the same burden.”