Feds: 1 in 4 Inmates Are Foreign-Born, Costing U.S. Taxpayers $1.4B Annually

** ADVANCE FOR WEEKEND, FEB. 5-6 ** Washington state prisons Lt. Clan Jacobs, left, walks
AP Photo/Ted S. Warren

About one in four federal inmates are either an illegal alien, legal immigrant, or suspected foreign-born criminal, a new federal report concludes.

In total, there were nearly 240,000 inmates in the federal prison system as of 2018, a Department of Justice (DOJ) report finds. Of that total, nearly 60,000 of those prisoners were illegal aliens and legal immigrants who have been ordered to be deported, were in proceedings to be deported, or were currently under investigation by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to confirm their foreign-born status.

This dictates that about one in four — or about 25 percent — federal inmates are born outside the U.S. and came to the country either illegally or legally.

In Bureau of Prisons (BOP) custody, alone, foreign-born prisoners account for more than 20 percent of the total federal prison population. This confirms that about one in five federal inmates in BOP custody are foreign-born. There were nearly 40,000 foreign-born inmates in BOP custody as of 2018.

Similarly, about 38 percent of inmates in U.S. Marshals Serice (USMS) custody are foreign-born, including more than 21,000 either illegal aliens or legal immigrants out of the more than 56,000 inmates in custody as of 2018. The data concludes that more than three in eight inmates in USMS custody are foreign-born, and 70 percent have already been ordered to be deported.

Most recent cost estimates find that the foreign-born federal prison population costs American taxpayers about $1.42 billion every year, according to a 2018 report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO).

The DOJ data does not factor in the number of foreign-born inmates, illegal aliens, or legal immigrants who are currently in state and local custody. The vast majority, about 90 percent, of the country’s criminal population are held in state and local jails.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder

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