Governor Tells Feds: Pay Your Bills

Press Release

GOVERNOR TELLS FEDS: PAY YOUR BILLS

Arizona submits $448 million invoice for SCAAP

Governor Janet Napolitano has sent another invoice to the federal government calling upon it to either reimburse the more than $448 million it owes to the state of Arizona for incarcerating criminal aliens under the State Criminal Alien Assistance Plan (SCAAP) or take the more than 5,200 SCAAP inmates detained in Arizona's prisons into federal custody.

"As the service provider, the state of Arizona is left with the substantial unreimbursed costs," Governor Napolitano wrote in her letter to U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey. "This burden on Arizona taxpayers is unfair and is a direct result of the federal government's failure both to properly secure our borders and to pay the costs associated with this failure."

The uncompensated costs hit Arizona particularly hard this fiscal year as Arizona is facing a $1.2 billion budget shortfall. "Today the leadership of the Arizona Legislature and I are meeting to make difficult decisions about what services to Arizona's elderly, children and other residents must be cut, in part because we are using our state revenues to pay for the federal government's
SCAAP costs," Napolitano continued in her letter.

Since October 21, 2004, Governor Napolitano has sent invoices to the federal government for SCAAP. The federal government is required by law to pay these costs, but has failed to pay more than pennies on the dollar. This is the seventh invoice Napolitano has sent.

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