Schwarzenegger: build prisons in Mexico for illegal aliens

From this month's candidate for a Rube Goldberg award (link):

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger floated a different approach to trimming down California's bloated prison budget on Monday: pay Mexico to build new prisons and ship off California’s incarcerated illegal immigrants south of the border.

..."We can do so much better in the prison system alone if we can go and take inmates, for instance the 20,000 inmates that are illegal immigrants that are here, and get them to Mexico... Think about it... We pay them to build the prison down in Mexico... ...Half the costs to build the prisons and half the costs to run the prisons. That is money -- $1 billion right there -- that could go into higher education."

The plan does make some sense, with the caveat that corruption in Mexico would drive up the costs and might lead to, for instance, some prisoners "escaping".

However, there would be fewer Mexican illegal aliens prisoners here in the first place if Arnold and his current and past friends (such as Fabian Nunez) weren't such strong supporters of illegal immigration. And, some of the savings that would be spent on education will be to educate citizens of Mexico who are here illegally. What Arnold is proposing might save money, but it's simply a bandaid over the real problem, one that he's too corrupt to address.

Tue, 01/26/2010 - 11:50 · Importance: 4