Lungren Calls for Action on Felons Returning to U.S. : Crime: He says federal officials fail to prosecute deportees who illegally come back after serving time in state prisons. The Justice Department denies that enforcement is lax.

Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren demanded again Tuesday that the Clinton Administration seize and prosecute illegal immigrant felons who return to California after deportation, often to commit new crimes.

Saying crimes caused by these felons have escalated since he first raised the issue last year, Lungren said, “How many more victims must there be before there is any prosecution by the federal government?”

Lungren, a Republican contender for governor in 1998, said at a news conference that U.S. Atty. Gen. Janet Reno is failing to prosecute felons who illegally re-enter California after serving time in state prisons.

In Washington, the U.S. Justice Department denied Lungren’s assertions and said it is working “aggressively and protectively” to identify and prosecute felons who return to this country illegally.

Spokeswoman Ana Cobian said federal immigration officials have met four times in the past six months with California corrections officials. She said California officials have promised to propose a remedy but have yet to do so.

Lungren and Joe G. Sandoval, state secretary of youth and adult corrections, said state parole officers know the whereabouts of some felons who return to California illegally but allege that their reports are dismissed by federal immigration authorities.

Lungren said state officers do not take such violators into custody because enforcing U.S. immigration laws is a federal responsibility. “They are telling us they don’t have the resources,” Sandoval said of federal immigration officials.

But Cobian said the U.S. Department of Justice is acting aggressively. She said, for example, that the U.S. attorney in San Diego has prosecuted 303 criminal immigrants for illegal re-entry since Jan. 1. Of these, 108 have received sentences of up to two years.

Lungren said felons deported after serving their time in prison often re-enter California illegally and routinely report to their parole officers, apparently because parole violators face more severe punishment under state law than they do for illegal entry under federal law.

Last June, Lungren and Sandoval made similar demands of Reno. They said there were 1,226 illegal immigrant parolees who had returned to California. In the past nine months, the total has swollen to 1,384, they said Tuesday.

In a letter to Reno, the two state officials reported that 251 new crimes have been committed by the criminals identified last June, including three homicides.