After Emergency Cabinet Meeting, Brewer to turn over illegal alien prisoners to ICE

Governor Brewer called an emergency cabinet meeting over the weekend to address the ongoing budget crisis and provide updated revenue and expenditure numbers.

She also laid out 10 actions items she intends to have her Directors implement. Sure to catch the headline is the fourth item on the list.

FOURTH, I am ordering the Arizona Department of Corrections to return to the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”) -- as soon as possible -- all non-violent criminal aliens as is allowed under existing law. The cost of incarcerating these criminal aliens is NOT Arizona’s responsibility. By federal law, the cost of their incarceration is the responsibility of the FEDERAL government.

There was no mention of additional revenue, and it didn't need mentioning. The picture that was laid out, and that you can see in the slides, is that because of voter mandated items you can cut everything out of the budget that's not mandated and still not fix the hole. In other words, you could shut down almost all government services and still have problems to fix. This goes right to the heart of those that say the state should go back to 2006 revenue levels.

The Governor's comments can be found here.