Bureau of Justice Assistance, Department of Justice
Program Name: State Criminal Alien Assistance Program
Request Amount: $950,000,000
Project Recipient: Bureau of Justice Assistance, Department of Justice
Explanation of the Request:
SCAAP reimburses state and local governments for the costs of incarcerating criminal aliens and is vital to border states such as California which incarcerate a disproportionately high share of undocumented criminal aliens. Congress has consistently legislated that the federal government must either take criminal aliens into federal custody or reach an agreement to compensate state and local jurisdictions for their incarceration, most recently as a part of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 (P.L. 103-322). SCAAP is an especially critical program given the increasing importance of local law enforcement personnel to the homeland security mission. The federal government must support their contribution to this mission with appropriate funds. This is particularly important in California which has the largest population of incarcerated undocumented aliens of any state in the nation. As a result, California State and local governments incur greater costs than other jurisdictions. The State of California alone spends more than $750 million annually to incarcerate undocumented immigrants convicted of criminal offenses. Unfortunately, over the past several years, the cost to qualifying jurisdictions has exceeded reimbursement by hundreds of millions of dollars.
