Misplaced Priorities: SB90 & the Costs to Local Communities
December 1, 2012
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KEY FINDINGS
Colorado’s local communities pay a high price for SB90 and federal immigration enforcement. In an era of budget deficits, reduced services, hiring freezes and cuts across the board, local governments must allocate precious resources to arresting, reporting and detaining suspected undocumented immigrants charged with low-level crimes – disturbing the peace, failure to use a turn signal, giving false information. It’s time to re- evaluate SB90 and ask again if SB90 and immigration enforcement is the right priority for Colorado.
- The state of Colorado spends upwards of $13 million per year to enforce federal immigration laws – more than it would cost to put an additional 200 additional police officers or sheriff’s deputies on the street.
- The City and County of Denver alone pays up to $1.5 million per year to arrest and detain suspected undocumented immigrants – roughly the same amount of general fund money allocated to the Denver District Attorney’s Office for the Family Violence Unit, which screens and prosecutes cases of family violence ranging from spousal or intimate partner abuse to elder abuse and child sexual assault – a public safety service that provides an on-call staff that responds to child fatalities 24-hours a day, seven days a week.
SB90 and ICE detainers result in more immigrants being jailed for low-level offenses in the first place and held for longer periods of time in the second – all at an increased cost to local taxpayers.
- 63 percent of people in Denver County over a two-year period with an immigration detainer were charged with misdemeanor and lower level offenses. Only 37 percent were charged with a felony of any level.
- Federal immigration officials have removed only 65 people from Denver County who were convicted of a serious felony offense since Denver began participating in ICE’s new deportation program, Secure Communities.
- People with a suspected immigration violation stayed in county jail an average of 22 days longer than people without an ICE hold.
