FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Tuesday, July 5, 2005

Isakson Introduces Legislation to Improve Enforcement of Immigration Laws
Bill Directs Feds to Pay Local Law Enforcement for Holding Illegal Aliens,
Lets Local Police Assist Feds in Enforcing Immigration Laws

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.) has joined with several of his colleagues in introducing legislation to give state and local law enforcement officers the authority to help the Department of Homeland Security enforce the nation’s immigration laws, including improving the government’s ability to deport illegal aliens who have been ordered to leave the country.

"We are a nation of immigrants, and we should honor every legal immigrant here and encourage them to become citizens," Isakson said. "But we are also a nation of laws. This bill simply gives federal law enforcement agencies help in identifying criminal aliens."

The estimated 10 million illegal aliens living in the U.S. vastly outnumber the 2,000 Department of Homeland Security immigration agents charged with immigration enforcement. The Department is currently looking for some 400,000 “alien absconders” – illegal aliens who have final deportation orders against them but cannot be located. Of those alien absconders, 80,000 are convicted criminals who disappeared after serving their prison sentences. Several thousand of those criminals are from countries the State Department has classified as a “state sponsor of terrorism.”

Specifically, the Homeland Security Enhancement Act of 2005, which is sponsored by Senators Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) and co-sponsored by Larry Craig (R-Idaho) and James Inhofe (R-Okla.), would:

• Clarify that local law enforcement officers have the legal authority to enforce immigration violations during the normal course of carrying out their regular duties;

• Increase the amount of immigration information entered into the FBI’s National Crime Information Center, making the material more readily accessible to state and local officers;
  
• Add critically needed federal immigration detention facilities and bed space so that criminal aliens, once apprehended, do not have to be released because of a lack of space;

• Direct the federal government to take custody of illegal aliens caught by state or local officers or pay the locality to detain the aliens. Currently, state and local officers are often told to let the illegal aliens go free because no one is available to take custody;

• Mandate extension of the Institutional Removal Program so that criminal aliens are detained after their sentences until deportation – preventing them from being released into the community and disappearing; and
  
• Direct states to make drivers licenses for legal aliens expire on the same day the alien’s permission to be in the country expires.

The bill focuses on voluntary participation and does not require state and local law enforcement officers to apprehend aliens. 

“This bill does not target immigrants,” Isakson said. “It brings some much-needed clarity and coordination to our national immigration system.”

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