House Appropriations Subcommittee on Corrections

April 21, 2009

Barbara Levine

Executive Director

Citizens Alliance on Prisons and Public Spending

Good morning Chairwoman Smith and Members of the Committee.  I appreciate the opportunity to speak very briefly in support of this bill.

In April 2006, the Citizens Alliance on Prisons and Public Spending published a report entitled:  Foreign Nationals in Michigan Prisons:  an examination of costs.  Copies have been provided to the committee. 

The report focused on foreign nationals who are eligible for parole.  At that time, there were a total of 731 foreign nationals in Michigan prisons, of whom 147 were then eligible for release on parole.  Another 121 would become eligible in 2006 and 86 more would become eligible in 2007. I don’t know how the comparable numbers would look today.  We discussed some of the issues that arise from the continued incarceration of people who are subject to deportation, including the cost to taxpayers.  We included a summary of the applicable law written by an immigration lawyer who specializes in representing criminal aliens. 

We also provided profiles of six prisoners who were subject to immediate deportation upon release.  Three have now been paroled.  Krzysztof Tubisz, who had a 3.5 year minimum on an assault charge was paroled after serving 8.5 years and presumably deported to Poland.  Chol Kon Kim, who had a 10 year minimum for second-degree murder was paroled after serving 17 years and presumably deported to S. Korea.  Delfino Moreno, who was serving a parolable life term for second-degree murder, was paroled 16 years after he first became eligible and presumably deported to Mexico.  

Three others, including Gabriel Christ whose profile I gave you when I testified on the corrections budget a few weeks ago, are still incarcerated.  Christ, from Germany, is now age 62 and eight years past his earliest release date.  Ali Sareini, from Lebanon, a 44 year old lifer who committed a murder at age 19, became eligible for parole 10 years ago.  Hanna Nasr, from Canada, is a 52 year old drug lifer who has been parole-eligible for 2.5 years.  All three are incarcerated in lower security Michigan prisons, just marking time.  It is difficult to understand what Michigan citizens gain from continuing to keep these men.

CAPPS strongly supports HB 4130 as a means of reducing Michigan’s prison population without any risk to the public.  We understand excluding certain kinds of offenders who the public might want to see fully punished before allowing them to leave the country.  But even for those offenders, once the judicially imposed punishment has been satisfied, release and deportation would seem to be the most cost-effective step to protect both the public’s safety and its purse.  Therefore, we would encourage you to amend HB 4130 to mandate release once any prisoner is eligible for parole.  One way to do this would be to insert a new subsection between (2) and (3) that says:

If the department receives an order of deportation for any prisoner from the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service, the parole board shall grant parole as soon as the prisoner becomes eligible.  

Thank you for considering this suggestion.