U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter visited with inmates at the Allegheny County Jail yesterday as part of a statewide tour to explore what happens to undocumented immigrants after they've served a sentence on criminal charges.

"There are 12 [million] to 20 million illegal immigrants in the United States," he said after the tour. "It's a physical impossibility to deport them all, but where you have people who have been convicted of crimes there's absolutely no reason why those individuals ought not to be deported. We're going to use every means we have to get the countries of origin to take these people back."

His concern was that inmates the federal government was unable to deport would be released and re-offend.

Mr. Specter said he's considering legislation that would give aid to countries that would take back felons after they've served time.

He mentioned an undocumented inmate at the State Correctional Institution Camp Hill who he said cost the government $250,000 a year because he had to be force-fed.

On his visit to pod 1C, Mr. Specter and U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan posed a theoretical scenario to two inmates who the commanding officer had identified as undocumented immigrants.

A Syrian man told him, if given the chance, he would not return to his country in exchange for having an attempted burglary charge dropped. A Mexican man, who was jailed for drunken driving, said he would accept the deal.

Warden Ramon Rustin said the federal government gives the jail $64 a day for each of the 30 current inmates who will eventually be deported. It costs the jail $60 to $62 to house them. The warden said U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement routinely picks up undocumented immigrants once they complete their sentences.