‘They just will come back’

Nevada taxpayers are shelling out hundreds of millions of dollars each year to provide illegal immigrants with schooling, health care and various social services. State and local government officials maintain they're largely powerless to quantify or police the problem. The Clark County School District, meanwhile, has become dependent on illegals and their anchor babies to boost its enrollment-based funding and its eligibility for federal grants.

Many voters are demanding that their representatives do something to reduce the fiscal burden of illegal immigration, and Nevada has responded on a single front: the state corrections system.

Last year, the public paid about $20 million to incarcerate at least 1,000 illegal immigrants in Silver State prisons. These criminals contribute to overcrowding in the prison system, which is projected to have an inmate population of more than 20,000 by 2016. The 2007 Legislature approved $300 million worth of new prison space, but even those construction projects won't be enough to house all of Nevada's felons in the decades ahead.

To make up for that lack of bed space, the state must find alternative means of punishing thousands of nonviolent offenders. So authorities began this effort with a political no-brainer: releasing illegal immigrants for deportation.

Over the past few months, the state Pardons Board has commuted the sentences of scores of nonviolent illegal immigrants and turned them over to federal authorities. So far, 97 inmates have been deported.

On Wednesday, the Pardons Board commuted the sentences of eight more illegal immigrants so they can be expelled from the country. With each successful deportation, Nevada taxpayers save $20,000 in annual incarceration costs. The state might be able to release hundreds more illegals convicted of drug offenses and other nonviolent crimes.

These commutations are not carried out as a cattle call, nor should they be. On Wednesday, the Pardons Board rejected the release of 13 other inmates, including one man convicted of transporting 8 pounds of methamphetamine. And Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto, a Pardons Board member, refused to support the commutations of any of the inmates, saying she couldn't support the release of drug traffickers, especially those convicted of transporting highly addictive meth.

Ms. Cortez Masto vowed to get tough on meth producers and dealers during last year's campaign, and in February she was appointed by Gov. Jim Gibbons to lead a working group that will propose legislation to combat methamphetamine use in Nevada.

Additionally, Ms. Cortez Masto made the legitimate objection that deportation offers no guarantees. "They just will come back," she said.

Some offenders will undoubtedly prove Ms. Cortez Masto correct. And when they do, the state must charge them with felonies and lock them up again.

Ms. Cortez Masto and other Western law enforcement officials will meet with Mexico's attorney general today to discuss how to slow the flow of meth into the United States, but Nevadans shouldn't hold their breath expecting help from south of the border. Not when remittances from Mexican nationals -- including drug dealers -- inject billions of dollars in cash into that corrupt economy every year.

Ms. Cortez Masto's stand is admirable, but in the years ahead it will apply even more pressure on Nevada's prison population. The state certainly should not release violent thugs who'll put public safety at risk. Nonviolent offenders are the best candidates for early release -- including those involved in the meth trade. The Pardons Board should continue commuting illegals convicted of such offenses -- and remind them they're not welcome back.