John Rice Carter: “I thank the chair for yielding to me. I would like to bring to the attention of my colleagues the recent change made by…”

“I thank the chair for yielding to me. I would like to bring to the attention of my colleagues the recent change made by the Department of Justice to the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program, also known as SCAAP. While this program is under the jurisdiction of the DOJ, it is a consequence of the Federal Government's failure to secure our borders, which is why I bring it up during this debate. SCAAP reimburses States and counties for part of the cost of incarcerating undocumented criminal aliens. I want to emphasize that this program does not come close to fully reimbursing our States or our counties for the full cost of incarcerating these individuals. Recently, DOJ announced that they will offer no reimbursement for what they consider to be unknown documented aliens. Being an unknown documented alien simply means that DHS has no information on that individual, a designation that would apply to a majority of the illegal aliens in this country. For example, when the sheriff in my home county picks up someone for aggravated assault and, in accordance with the Secure Communities Checks, the Federal database, if this person has never been processed by DHS, they will be considered unknown documented aliens and therefore ineligible to be reimbursed for any part of the cost of the incarceration under this new rule. I would like to point out this change disproportionately affects counties over States, both of which are eligible for reimbursement under SCAAP.…”