A politician proffers his “wild idea” of building state prisons in foreign countries — a way to reduce inmate overcrowding and remove immigrant convicts.
A Huffington Post report draws around 2,200 comments — most mocking the concept.
But it wasn’t from Donald Trump. The pol was Brian Jones of Santee.
Fourteen years before President Trump drew Supreme Court scrutiny (and national outrage) for sending immigrants to an El Salvador prison without due process, rookie Assemblyman Jones told me and a fellow reporter: “Let’s build … prisons in their home countries and send them to those prisons.”
Jones, a former Santee councilman, met me and Santee Patch editor Steven Bartholow in October 2011 outside the Starbucks at Santee Trolley Square .
He said such state-built prisons would “operate at a lot lower expense than being here in California. And let their home country take care of them.”
Jones was responding to a question about prison realignment — the move under Gov. Jerry Brown to shift state prisoners to county jails.
Jones, a Republican, said that simply deporting immigrants convicted of state crimes would end up with them coming back.
A year after Brian Jones was elected to the state Assembly, he spoke to Patch editors in Santee. (Photo by Ken Stone)“So we’ve got to secure our borders so that we can stop the transfer, back and forth, of illegal immigration — and then send those people home.”
Forty-three at the time, he conceded he hadn’t “done any math on this” foreign-prisons concept.
“But it might be cheaper to pay for the prisons in other countries — if the other country will run it and keep them actually in prison,” he said.
Two weeks after our Santee chat, Jones seemed to double down.
“This idea was more hyperbole, but to my surprise it’s caught on and gotten national attention,” Jones told San Diego’s Fox TV station. “I presented it as a wild idea and then found out maybe it’s not so wild.”
Fox5 San Diego reporter James Koh wrote: “The assemblyman said that while his idea is interesting and a conversation starter he admitted he hasn’t fleshed out the details to his plan quite yet.”
But Jones said: “The next step is to answer those questions: Is it more cost-effective, is it legal, and is it possible?”
Answers became apparent. In Sacramento, nothing came of the concept.
But given the new attention to sending “illegal alien criminals” — or even U.S. citizens — to foreign prisons, Times of San Diego sent Jones’ press secretary some questions:
Does Sen. Jones agree with Trump on sending both U.S. citizen and immigrant convicts to El Salvador? Would Sen. Jones support a bill in Sacramento to send state convicts (citizen or noncitizen) to foreign prisons? Would Sen. Jones support a bill in Sacramento to build prisons in foreign countries to house state convicts (citizen or noncitizen)?Jones didn’t address specific questions but said in a statement Tuesday: “My off-the-cuff remarks from 15 years ago were meant to spark discussion around a complex federal issue, not outline actual policy. As Senate minority leader today, my focus is on real, actionable solutions within California’s jurisdiction to keep our communities safe and uphold the rule of law.”
As noted in my November 2011 follow-up story, Jones wasn’t even the first to float the foreign-prisons idea.
Then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was a booster — in January 2010.
“We can do so much better, in the prison system alone, if we can go and take inmates — for instance, the 20,000 inmates that are illegal immigrants that are here — and get them to Mexico,” Schwarzenegger was quoted by the Sacramento Bee.
“We pay them to build a prison down in Mexico and then we have those undocumented immigrants be down there in the prison,” he added. “Half the cost to build the prisons and half the cost to run the prisons. That is money, again, a billion dollars right there that can go into higher education. That is an example of one of the things we do that is unnecessary spending.”
Aaron McLear, the governor’s press secretary, later told told San Francisco-based ABC7: “We don’t have any proposal put together, nothing set in stone. But like any other creative solution to spending less on prisons, the governor thinks we ought to talk about that.”
Last week, I sought comment from Schwarzenegger. No response.
Even earlier — in April 1997 — The New York Times reported that Arizona Republican Gov. Fife Symington “proposed a twist to the North American Free Trade Agreement: a plan to build a private 1,600-inmate prison in Mexico to house the bulk of Arizona’s Mexican prisoners.”
Transcript of October 2011 Patch interview with Brian Jones. (PDF)“It would mean big dollars to the operator and to the Mexican economy,” said Terry Stewart, the Arizona prisons director. “On April 10, Mr. Stewart received two responses to a request for feasibility studies, one from a prison company based in Florida and the other from a group in Mexico.”
Nothing came of that either.
And no wonder. State-built prisons in Mexico could run afoul of the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment, among other laws. Not to mention fierce opposition from Democratic lawmakers.
The New York Times, in its 1997 story, noted that such prisons would require a treaty between the United States and Mexico.
States can’t conduct their own foreign policy, said a State Department spokesman.
“Any kind of international agreement of that kind would have to be between two national governments,” said the spokesman. “I don’t know how two states could effect that legally.”
Luis Cabrera, who would become the Mexican Consul General in San Diego, pointed to jurisdictional problems without a treaty.
“Prisons in Mexico cannot be managed by foreign authorities,” Cabrera told The New York Times.
If state-built prisons in Mexico or elsewhere are such a nonstarter, why wouldn’t Brian Jones — now a state senator and leader of Senate Republicans — simply say that?
Before Jones’ statement arrived, I asked veteran San Diego political scientist Carl Luna why Jones wouldn’t reply.
The Mesa College and University of San Diego professor offered several reasons .
“First, given mounting backlash to the Trump administration at the [grass-roots] level, Republicans in general seem to be going out of their way not to speak to the press about anything,” he said.
“Second, to speak out in favor of this blatantly unconstitutional policy runs the risk of alienating [the] more moderate base of the Republican Party and independents.”
But by saying nothing, Luna said via email, “Jones passively endorses the president until such time he’s forced to pick which side of the constitutional fence he has decided to come down on, which for now is probably enough to keep his MAGA supporters satisfied.”
I wrote to James Koh, the former Fox5 San Diego reporter who covered Jones and his “conversation starter.”
Koh, now an NBCLA sportscaster and adjunct professor at Mount San Antonio College, told me he doesn’t recall that interview.
“My reaction would be that it’s preposterous, though!” Koh said via email.
My former Patch colleague Bartholow said: “Not surprised Jones isn’t stepping into that landmine-ridden field. … But it does seem it’s prime time for wild ideas.”
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