Minnesota Officials Question Homeland Security’s Noncitizen Prison Numbers

ST. PAUL (WJON News) -- Officials with the Minnesota Department of Corrections accuse the U-S Department of Homeland Security of providing inaccurate data on the number of dangerous criminals in our jails and prisons.

Commissioner Paul Schnell says D-H-S claims there are more than one thousand 360 ICE detainers, but they just did a point-in-time count:

"At the end of January on county jails, and at that time we had 94 people who were non-citizens in county jails across the state. We also know that we have about 380 non-citizens in Minnesota Department of Corrections' prisons across the state."

Schell says that's less than 500 in Minnesota jails and prisons, and he cannot figure out where D-H-S counts more than 13 hundred.

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Border Czar Tom Homan is thanking the state's prisons for cooperating with federal immigration agents on the transfer of ICE detainers. Schnell says they have a longstanding relationship with the local ICE office:

"Minnesota law does not require the Department of Corrections to turn people over at the end of their sentences to ICE. We do it because we think it's consistent with public safety. And so we hear this across the board that if people are going to be deported these are the people that should be."

Homan also said the county jails are providing unprecedented cooperation.