Tijuana, S.D. Officials Unenthusiastic : Plan to Ship Inmates to Mexico Called Unlikely

Mexican prisons probably will not offer a remedy for overcrowded jails in San Diego.

San Diego County authorities, seeking to cut the inmate population, have looked into the possibility of cutting a deal with Mexican officials whereby undocumented Mexican aliens serving time for crimes committed here could be transferred to Mexican jails for the remainder of their sentences. The county would pay Mexican officials for the service, according to a preliminary plan that is being studied.

However, officials have since learned that the prisons in Baja California are just as crowded as jails in San Diego County, and there is little enthusiasm south of the border for importing inmates from the United States. Moreover, a wide range of legal and procedural impediments make it unlikely that such a plan would be implemented, officials said.

“My overall conclusion is that it’s not going to happen,” said Superior Court Judge Don Martinson, supervising judge in the court’s Vista branch.

Martinson was one of several county officials who recently visited the state penitentiary in Tijuana and broached the idea to the warden, Jose Luis Garcia Figueroa. Garcia informed the contingent that even if he was interested, Baja’s prison system is already overcrowded and underfunded, leaving little room for inmates from the United States.

Tijuana’s La Mesa penitentiary, designed for 750 prisoners, was then holding about 1,300 inmates, and construction of a new state prison has stalled because of funding problems, according to American officials. Garcia could not be reached for comment.

Other practical hurdles--such as obtaining approval from Washington and Mexico City--also make the idea unlikely, officials said. “Everyone agreed that you would probably have to go through the State Departments on both sides,” noted Assistant San Diego County Sheriff Cliff Powell, who participated in the meeting in Tijuana.

Moreover, officials acknowledged that civil rights groups and other organizations would probably resist any such proposal because the Mexican prison and legal systems are vastly different from the U.S. systems, and the jails do not have to meet the same standards.

“It sounds to me like a bad idea,” said Gregory Marshall, legal director for the San Diego chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.

“In my opinion, it’s totally absurd,” added Herman Baca, chairperson of the Committee on Chicano Rights.

The idea has never been proposed as a formal plan. Officials indicated this week that it wasn’t likely that it ever would be.

At issue are undocumented workers held in county prisons for state and local crimes. They must serve their sentences here before being turned over to the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service.

Not included in the debate are the hundreds of undocumented Mexican workers arrested each day by U.S. immigration authorities. Most of these elect to return to Mexico voluntarily, although some are held in federal custody pending resolution of their cases.

County officials could provide no figures on the percentage of undocumented Mexican nationals in San Diego County jails, although they say the number is substantial. At the Couty Jail at Vista, which is believed to have the highest proportion, about 25% of the inmates are said to be illegal immigrants from Mexico, officials said.

Currently, the population of each of the six county-run jails exceeds capacity, according to the Sheriff’s Department. The system, designed to hold 1,694 prisoners, was home Tuesday to 2,470 inmates, officials said. A $25-million expansion planned at the Vista jail is not expected to keep pace with rising inmate population.

“It’s like a rubber band--it’s been stretched and stretched and stretched,” Assistant Sheriff Powell said. “It’s a question of how far you can stretch it. You can’t keep putting water in soup.”