This cop killing particularly enraged law-enforcement officials because Rodriguez was an illegal alien who-at least in theory-could have been deported by the federal government two months earlier. At the time of the McDonald shooting, Rodriguez was awaiting trial on drug-dealing charges. On Jan. 10, he had been arrested for selling two vials of crack. While prosecutors requested bail, Rodriguez was released because it was his first arrest. Police didn’t learn he was an illegal alien until after the murder. And even if they had, he still would have likely been back on the street. Why? City officials in New York and elsewhere often refuse to tell the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service about possible illegals they have in custody-because it might alienate immigrant constituencies. And besides, the INS probably wouldn’t have held a drug suspect like Rodriguez anyway-because it lacks jail space for anyone other than the most violent.
McDonald’s murder unites two festering political issues that are now consuming federal and state legislators: crime and immigration. The increased number of criminal aliens, both illegal and documented, seem to bring out the worst in both the justice and immigration bureaucracies. More than 80,000 aliens occupy state and federal prison cells-roughly 9 percent of the total. (The figures are not exact, but officials believe that the states with the largest number of alien inmates are California, Texas and Florida.) In the federal system alone, more than a quarter of the inmates are aliens.
What especially incenses law-enforcement officials is that, in some states, criminal aliens, whether illegal or documented, can serve out their prison terms and then still wind up staving in this country; only the most heinous ex-con is likely to be detained and booted out. That isn’t just because of the range of due-process rights available to aliens, especially those who have green cards and families, or who have been here for more than seven years. The bigger problem is that some state corrections people and the Feds don’t talk much to each other.
Describing U.S. immigration policy is like entering the twilight zone at rush hour-except there’s no Rod Serling to offer traffic updates. Criminal aliens typically must serve out their prison sentences before becoming deportable. When a state inmate who’s an alien is released or is about to be, the INS may not even know about it. if the INS does know, it may or may not be able to complete the months of deportation proceedings prior to release. If deportation doesn’t happen and the inmate gets out, only the most serious are held in custody pending deportation hearings. The State of New York, for example, releases about 3,000 alien inmates from prison each year, but the INS has only several hundred cells in the state. “We’ve had cases where the INS folks pick up an inmate, walk him out the front door, and say, ‘Have a nice day’,” says James Flateau of New York’s corrections department.
Who pays for the inmates’ three-hots-and-a-cot? Florida has already sued the federal government and Gov. Pete Wilson of California will join that action later this week. Last week the Clinton administration asked Congress for $350 million in state aid to help fund the cost of alien inmates. But Wilson said that wouldn’t be enough. Florida and other states have also moved to improve coordination with the INS. Ideally, says U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno, deportation proceedings would begin before aliens finish their sentences; this summer Florida and the INS will try just that with some drug offenders.
That won’t necessarily finish the job. Because the United States patrols its borders so poorly, many aliens can return at will. California officials estimate they have more than a thousand felons who were paroled, deported-and then returned to the state. Thoughtfully, the ex-cons contacted their parole officers upon returning.
