Breaking news

We have been informed by a reliable source that all Mexican national (i.e. illegal immigrant) prisoners held by the Arizona Department of Corrections have been moved to a single housing unit in preparation for them to be relocated en masse to a prison in Mexico.  The state would presumably be providing the funds to operate this facility, a plan that appears to be quite similar to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's own much-mocked proposal for California he made a couple of days back.

Our source is "95%" sure that this is why the prisoner move has taken place, and further states that inmate trustees are currently in the process of sprucing up the prison grounds to make the place look good when the hordes of media flock there once they learn of this action.

We are attempting right now to confirm this rumour with DOC officials.  More when we get it.

UPDATE:  We spoke on the phone with DOC Public Information Officer Barrett Marson, who states that this rumor is "not true".  What he informed us is going on is that 51 illegal alien non-violent criminal offenders with 90 days or less left on their sentences have been bused to a facility in order to be turned over to ICE for deportation, a process that is "permitted under the law" (and one with which we frankly agree).  Marson also points out that there are approximately 6300 "criminal aliens" in the system and that there is no one facility in Arizona large enough to hold them all at one time.

We're not sure if this process has never before been done or if it just hasn't taken place for some time, hence the confusion over the issue.  Either way, the move is sure to generate quite a bit of controversy and protest from the local illegal-immigrant "rights" crowd.