HUNTINGTON BEACH : City Agrees to Rent Jail Space to INS

The City Council on Monday night voted unanimously to allow the city jail to be used as a temporary holding facility for illegal immigrants being held by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service.

The INS, in return, will pay the city $75 a night for each person being held. The illegal immigrants are usually held only a day or two and are then returned to their native countries.

Last spring, the council similarly voted for another plan to use empty jail space as a moneymaker.

The council on March 25 voted to allow people convicted of lesser crimes, or misdemeanors, to serve their jail time in the city jail rather than in the crowded Orange County Jail system.

Persons opting for the Huntington Beach Jail are required to pay a fee ranging from $65 to $100 a day.

Police said Huntington Beach can offer the jail-rooms-for-fees programs because the city’s 72-person-capacity jail is seldom full.

The city jail-rental program approved Monday night also helps the INS deal with a serious overcrowding problem, police said.

Police Chief Ronald E. Lowenberg, in a memo to the City Council, said the INS processes 600 to 800 illegal immigrants a month and needs local facilities to house them until they are shipped to their native countries. That process usually takes one or two days.

Ten beds would be alloted to the INS and the city could make upward of $750 a day, he said.

The cooperative program with the INS would not cause the city police increased problems because the illegal immigrants would be locked up, requiring “a minimum of handling,” Lowenberg said.

Funds reaped from renting cells would help defray the city’s annual cost of operating a jail, he said. Several cities in the Los Angeles area have similar agreements to rent jail space to the INS.