Deportation Plan Targets Jail Inmates : Corrections: Atty. Gen. Reno launches pilot program to identify non-citizens at L.A. facility and expel them from the U.S. as soon as they are released.

Taking the offensive in an increasingly politicized immigration debate, Atty. Gen. Janet Reno came to Los Angeles County Jail on Monday and launched a Clinton Administration initiative aimed at ensuring the deportation of foreign nationals who commit crimes in the United States.

Reno unveiled a pilot program that, beginning June 1, will identify deportable foreigners at the jail and expel them upon their release. Experts estimate that as many as 20% of all inmates of County Jail are in the United States illegally or otherwise subject to expulsion.

“Our prisons and jails are crowded with criminal aliens, and each represents a drain on our resources and a threat to our communities,” said Reno, flanked on the jail lawn by a bevy of law enforcement luminaries, including Sheriff Sherman Block, Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti and U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service Commissioner Doris Meissner. “For too long, criminal aliens have exploited what has been, in essence, a revolving door between our prison and the streets of our cities.”

During the one-month experiment, U.S. officials expect to initiate deportation proceedings against 1,500 criminals--triple the number normally intercepted.

With immigration and crime likely to be major issues in next year’s presidential race, both Democrats and Republicans have been eager to talk tough about “criminal aliens.” The issue is especially sensitive in California, where Gov. Pete Wilson is expected to use immigration as a touchstone in his anticipated run for the Republican presidential nomination.

Present at Reno’s news conference were several uninvited guests critical of the Clinton Administration’s actions on immigration. Ron Prince, leader of the Proposition 187 movement, derided the President’s jail program as more “photo opportunity” than substance. He called for identification and expulsion of the almost 2 million illegal immigrants residing in the state but not in custody.

Another event-crasher, Joe G. Sandoval, secretary of the California Youth and Adult Correctional Agency, applauded the jail initiative. But Sandoval renewed a public demand by him and state Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren that federal authorities seize and prosecute about 1,900 state parolees who are known to have returned to California after being deported.

Ana Cobian, a U.S. Justice Department spokeswoman, said the state has yet to provide a list of the offenders or an often-promised systematic plan of how to deal with them.

For her part, Reno has vowed to increase deportation of criminals and prosecution of deported felons who return to the United States illegally.

Historically, the INS has failed to deport many foreign inmates subject to expulsion, both illegal immigrants and legal foreign residents who can be deported because they have committed crimes. That is largely because the agency has traditionally lacked the resources and direction to adequately monitor jails and prisons. Many potential deportees have simply disappeared into Southern California’s large immigrant community after serving their time.

As concern about this shortcoming has mounted, the INS has tightened the prison escape hatch. The agency has begun initiating deportation hearings while the subjects are still incarcerated in California institutions. This year, the INS expects to deport 4,500 convicts completing terms in California prisons, a record touted by the attorney general.

Currently, the INS has placed holds on more than 16,000 California prison inmates, more than 12% of the state’s prison population. Once released, the inmates are to be turned over to the INS, which is to launch deportation proceedings.

While bolstering the monitoring program in state prisons, Reno said authorities are now targeting county jails, such as the Los Angeles facility, where many felons end up doing time under plea-bargain agreements.

The pilot deportation plan--which authorities said is likely to be made permanent and extended to other California county jails and even local police lockups--mirrors the system already in place at state prisons. But the quick turnaround that is often the norm in jails means that INS officers must maintain strict vigilance on discharges.

Under the program, the INS will post personnel at the Los Angeles jail 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The round-the-clock coverage, Reno said, will allow agents to monitor all releases and arrest deportable foreigners for expedited deportation.

Usually deportation proceedings drag on for months, sometimes years. But Reno said that a special immigration court set up for the project will ensure that many criminal immigrants will have deportation hearings and receive expulsion orders the day of their release from jail.