Believe it or not, the Justice Department provides partial reimbursement for the costs of incarcerating illegal aliens to sanctuary cities (and counties and states) — jurisdictions that block enforcement of immigration laws. In other words, the illegal aliens are there in part because of the cities’ obstruction of federal law enforcement, and yet they’re demanding that the feds help subsidize that very obstruction! As my colleagues Jessica Vaughan and Russ Doubleday have calculated, sanctuary jurisdictions got more than $62 million under the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program in FY2010 — more than 15 percent of the program’s total outlays, and money that either could have not been spent at all or could have gone to defray the expenses of jurisdictions that are actually cooperating with the feds. From the report:

There is an easy fix. Congress should restrict eligibility for SCAAP funding to those jurisdictions that actively participate in immigration law enforcement programs such as Secure Communities, the Criminal Alien Program, or the 287(g) program. These three programs enable ICE, or designated specially trained local officials, to identify and process illegal aliens who have committed local crimes, thus ensuring that at least criminal aliens are not shielded by the local sanctuary policy. Language to this effect has been proposed several times over the years, but was never enacted. It was most recently included in a new bill introduced by Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah). Such a restriction might deter some jurisdictions from opting out of ICE programs, or at least prevent the sanctuaries from grabbing a share of scarce SCAAP funding with one hand while blocking ICE access to criminal aliens with the other.

Talk about low-hanging fruit; I understand there are even people at DHS headquarters who think this is outrageous. In addition to Hatch’s legislation referred to above, Rep. Gary Miller introduced a bill that would, among other things, limit this reimbursement funding to jurisdictions that don’t obstruct immigration enforcement.