During the June 28 broadcast of his Newsradio 850 KOA show, Mike Rosen did not question guest Dick Morris when the syndicated columnist claimed “300,000 of the inmates in our state and federal prisons, very close to a quarter of them, are here illegally.” In fact, as Colorado Media Matters has noted, the Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) has reported that at midyear 2006 “State and Federal prisons held 91,426 noncitizens” -- not the 300,000 Morris claimed and only a 337-inmate increase from a year earlier, when noncitizens comprised just 6.4 percent of the federal and state prison populations.

Morris made his unsubstantiated claim while answering Rosen's question about whether Congress wanted “to appropriate funds” to “hire more people and spend a lot of money to enforce our immigration laws, arrest people, and deport them?” Morris then dubiously asserted that “if we had an aggressive system of deportation, we could cut our crime rate by a quarter,” claiming “very close to a quarter” of prisoners “in our state and federal prisons” are illegal immigrants who are “not in jail for immigration violations”:

MORRIS: I think they would. I think they would. I think that there are plenty of Democrats that wouldn't because they, they want to pander to that vote. But I think that the, that the Congress would love to do that. And I think that it's Bush's failure to lead that he has failed to do that. He did expand the number of cells where we can hold illegals from 23,000 to 27,000, but, I mean, big deal; 300,000 of the inmates in our state and federal prisons, very close to a quarter of them, are here illegally. And they're not in jail for immigration violations, they're in jail for violent crimes. So if we enforce the immigration laws, if we had an aggressive system of deportation, we could cut our crime rate by a quarter. Just simply by doing that.

In fact, as Colorado Media Matters has noted, data from the BJS suggest that the percentage of federal and state prisoners who are illegal immigrants is a fraction of Morris' claim. According to BJS reports, about 6.4 percent of all state and federal inmates at midyear 2005 were “noncitizens” -- not just illegal immigrants. Moreover, the total number of those prisoners rose by just 337 through midyear 2006 to 91,426 noncitizens, according to the June 2007 BJS report -- less than a third of the “300,000” Morris claimed are in state and federal prisons. Additionally, BJS statistics show a steady decline in noncitizen prison populations in state and federal facilities during the past four years. BJS reports for the 12-month periods ending June 30 showed that in 2005, 6.4 percent of all state and federal inmates were legal and illegal noncitizens, down from 6.5 percent in 2004, 6.6 percent in 2003, and 6.9 percent in 2002.

Further, a May 17 report to the House Judiciary Committee's subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, and International Law, regarding academic research about “The Connection between Immigration and Crime,” observed that the recent BJS figures show that nearly 20 percent of all federal inmates are in fact noncitizens. But the report also asserted that those prisoners represented a disproportionately large number of the total noncitizen inmate population because “immigration offenses are violations of federal law”:

Table 2. Noncitizens in Prison, midyear 2005

Number

Percent Noncitizen (of all inmates in the jurisdiction)

State's Share of Noncitizen Inmates in State Prisons

Federal

35,285

19%

--

California

16,613

10%

30%

Texas

9,346

6%

17%

New York*

7,444

12%

13%

Florida

4,772

6%

9%

Arizona

4,179

13%

7%

Nevada

1,402

13%

3%

North Carolina

1,182

3%

2%

Illinois

1,065

4%

2%

Colorado*

1,026

5%

2%

Total

91,117

6%

Source: Harrison and Beck (2006), p. 5.

* reports foreign born, rather than noncitizens.

According to the report presented as testimony to the House subcommittee by Anne Morrison Piehl, an “associate professor in the Department of Economics and a member of the Program in Criminal Justice at Rutgers University” who has “been actively engaged in research on criminal justice topics, including the relationship between immigration and crime, for over 10 years":

It is routinely reported that a large fraction of federal prisoners are noncitizens. While true, this fact is misleading in two regards. First, immigration offenses are violations of federal law. Second, federal prisoners account for a relatively small fraction of the incarcerated population. Bureau of Justice Statistics figures show that, as of June 2005, 19% of all prisoners in federal custody were noncitizens. But, of all state and federal prisoners, just 6.4% were noncitizens. [emphasis added]

[...]

In conclusion, there is no empirical evidence that immigrants pose a particular crime threat. In contrast, the evidence points to immigrants having lower involvement in crime than natives. The direct evidence on crime rates shows that localities that receive large numbers of immigrants do not experience increases in relative crime rates. There is no reason to think that immigration in general presents a particular crime threat.

From the June 28 broadcast of Newsradio 850 KOA's The Mike Rosen Show:

ROSEN: Do you think there was any sentiment in Congress for appropriating dollars to hire more people and spend a lot of money to enforce our immigration laws, arrest people, and deport them?

MORRIS: Well, I think that certainly is sentiment for manning the border properly. But what I'm calling for is something that, you know, that's more important, I think, which is to have more agents in the United States charged with finding and arresting and deporting those people who are here illegally.

ROSEN: Well, that get, gets me back to the question, though, I just asked. Does Congress want to appropriate funds for that?

MORRIS: I think they would. I think they would. I think that there are plenty of Democrats that wouldn't because they, they want to pander to that vote. But I think that the, that the Congress would love to do that. And I think that it's Bush's failure to lead that he has failed to do that. He did expand the number of cells where we can hold illegals from 23,000 to 27,000, but, I mean, big deal; 300,000 of the inmates in our state and federal prisons, very close to a quarter of them, are here illegally. And they're not in jail for immigration violations, they're in jail for violent crimes. So if we enforce the immigration laws, if we had an aggressive system of deportation, we could cut our crime rate by a quarter. Just simply by doing that.

ROSEN: Well, OK. My, my take on the politics of it, I guess, in this case is different from yours. With the Democrats controlling the House and the Senate, I don't think you could ever get a bill out that just allocated more funds for rigorous enforcement, arrest, and deportation of illegal aliens -- most of whom are Hispanics. The, the best that you can come up with is some kind of a, a comprehensive compromise, which is just what we've been --

MORRIS: Yes.

ROSEN: -- talking about in the Senate bill that included so many things that would be objectionable to Republicans we'd have the same impasse that we have now.