Federal Grant Will Help Cover Jail Costs

The Ventura County Sheriff’s Department soon will receive help from the federal government to deal with illegal immigrants in the county’s jail and the handful incarcerated at juvenile hall.

The department announced Friday that it will receive more than $500,000 as reimbursement for the cost of jailing illegal immigrants, said Capt. Mark Ball, a department spokesman.

The department had applied to be reimbursed for more than $1.3 million under the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program. That figure is based on an estimate that it costs $52 a day for a stay of approximately three months to house each of the county’s estimated 245 illegal immigrants sentenced to the county jail for various offenses, Ball said.

The federal assistance program is administered by the U.S. Department of Justice, which reviews the applications. Last year the department only received about $200,000, or 16% of what it had requested. The average length of incarceration was about 99 days for each inmate last year, officials said.

Under a six-month pilot project, two agents from the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service are working full time at the County Jail to track which inmates are illegal immigrants.

Those who are convicted of felonies serve their sentences and are then deported, Ball said.