Thank you for your June 26 editorial supporting U.S. Rep. David Price's view that federal agencies should be deporting more undocumented prisoners.

Many undocumented inmates in state prisons already have a federal order requiring their deportation as soon as North Carolina releases them. However, these inmates cannot be deported until they have completed sentences set under North Carolina's draconian structured sentencing laws, particularly those relating to drug offenses.

State Sen. Ellie Kinnaird introduced a bill in the 2007 session which would have allowed the early release of certain non-violent, first-time drug trafficking offenders. Inmates meeting the requirements and subject to a federal removal order would be released into the custody of Homeland Security.

This sensible bill would have given the North Carolina correctional system a reasonable time to convince inmates that drug trafficking will not be tolerated here. Then these non-citizens should be sent back to their home countries instead of being maintained here by our tax dollars.

If the legislature wants to go further and allow Homeland Security to deport all noncitizen inmates currently in state prisons, the authority for this action should mandate that any person so released and removed will, if found in the future to have re-entered the state illegally, be required to serve enough years to complete the maximum sentence originally entered.

Pat Spearman

Raleigh

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