The state's prison officials are mulling over the idea of possibly shipping some inmates to Mexico after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger suggested the idea earlier this week.
"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 said,according to 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."
Just to be clear, there are no such plans in the works now, state prison officials said.
However, the governor had said the state could save money by working with the Mexican government to create and operate prisons for some California inmates.