Whirlwind Around a Brig : Opposition to holding foreign felons at Miramar is misguided

A fire at the Miramar Federal Detention Facility in San Diego has put political heat on a successful program to keep foreign criminals in custody. Justice will be served if the opposition to the program is extinguished. Fast.

The conflict began when a small group of inmates set their mattresses on fire to protest a problem with canteen privileges. Twenty-four men ended up in the hospital and the incident rekindled a controversy between the U.S. Justice Department and some local officials and congressmen who oppose government use of part of the Navy brig at Miramar Naval Air Station to house foreigners convicted of crimes.

No one should minimize the incident, but neither should it be used as a pretext to derail a good program that is helping solve a much bigger problem. The issue involves foreign nationals who are convicted of a crime while in the United States illegally and who are subsequently deported. In 1995, Justice Department officials and other law enforcement agencies began to arrest, prosecute and send to prison scores of deported felons, the vast majority of them Mexican nationals, who had made their way back to the United States. Simply sending them back across the border hadn’t worked. For professional criminals the pickings were better on the American side. In 1992 only 179 convicted foreigners were prosecuted for violating their deportation orders by trying to reenter the United States. In 1995, under the new program, the number increased to 1,334.

With this increase, the problem for the Justice Department was where to house all these criminals. Discovering there were empty brigs at Miramar, Alan Berzin, the Immigration and Naturalization Service border czar, proposed contracting an 18-month lease of two brigs as a temporary solution.

Making the deal with the Navy was not easy. There was serious opposition from civilian and Navy officials who objected to establishing a civilian jail, particularly one for already convicted felons, on a naval base.

The deal was closed, however, and less than three weeks later the disturbance broke out. Now, Navy Secretary John Dalton has said he will take “a very hard look at the entire situation.”

For the Justice Department there is no immediate alternative. The program is keeping professional criminals off the streets, including San Diego’s. This should not be an issue for political manipulation. As everywhere in California, every available jail cell is needed.