ICE halts release of detainees
ICE halts release of detainees
By Daniel GonzálezThe Republic | azcentral.comWed Feb 27, 2013 10:04 PM
As Arizona Republican leaders on Wednesday intensified their criticism of the release of hundreds of immigrant detainees, Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced it had stopped the releases, which began Saturday as a budget-cutting move.
And amid rising political furor Wednesday, a top Homeland Security Department official in charge of detention and removal operations for ICE abruptly announced he was quitting, and a key congressional committee chairman sent a letter to ICE Director John Morton demanding details of the immigrant releases.
Meanwhile, White House officials said they were not told beforehand by ICE officials that hundreds of immigration detainees in deportation proceedings would be released to cut costs ahead of automatic budget cuts known as sequestration scheduled to take effect Friday.
That prompted a fresh round of criticism from Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, who accused President Barack Obama of going into “full duck and cover mode” to deflect criticism.
Her spokesman, Matthew Benson, said the release of detainees won’t help Obama gain the public’s trust as he attempts to convince Congress to pass a comprehensive immigration-reform bill that includes a path to citizenship for the nation’s 11 million undocumented immigrants in addition to enhanced border security and other measures.
“This is a bad sign,” Benson said. “If their first step was to start releasing into the community criminal aliens, that doesn’t suggest they have a real high commitment to public safety and continued immigration enforcement.
“Hundreds or thousands of criminal aliens are being released into these communities. We don’t know anything about their criminal profiles, the manner in which they’re being supervised or where they’re being released to.”
ICE officials said they have stopped releasing immigration detainees but could resume if the sequester cuts occur.
They also said that all of the detainees who have been released can be characterized as non-criminals or low-risk offenders who do not have serious criminal histories that would subject them to mandatory detention. Detainees with serious criminal histories are a detention priority and have not been released, ICE officials said.
Nevertheless, the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, sent a letter Wednesday to Morton asking who was released and what was being done to track them.
“This decision reflects the lack of resource prioritization within the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement and is indicative of the department’s weak stance on national security,” McCaul wrote.
Although the release of immigration detainees has drawn criticism, immigrant-advocacy groups have praised the move, saying other methods of supervision such as regular check-ins and electronic monitoring devices are more humane and less costly for immigrants in deportation proceedings with no serious criminal backgrounds.
U.S. Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., however, accused the Obama administration of releasing immigration detainees as a political ploy to pressure Congress to avert the scheduled cuts.
“They were trying to show people and actually threaten them by allowing this to occur to show them that these would be some of the programs cut to put pressure on the Congress,” Gosar said. “This is despicable. This was done in a calculated (way.)”
Gosar said his office received “hundreds of calls” Wednesday from angry constituents.
ICE officials said that since last Thursday, the agency released a total of 303 immigration detainees from four facilities in Pinal County after reviewing their cases. Those who were released were placed under supervision, ICE officials have said.
Gosar said he also believes the release of detainees will hurt the Obama administration’s ability to negotiate an immigration deal.
“This shows total disrespect and it shows that the president isn’t serious about having an immigration process,” said Gosar, who opposes immigration reforms until more border security is in place.
Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery, a Republican who is part of a bipartisan group of Arizona community leaders pushing for comprehensive immigration reform, also criticized the releases.
He said ICE should at least have notified local law enforcement that they were planning to release some detainees so authorities could determine whether they posed a risk to public safety.
“We don’t know what the criteria was for determining release, and we certainly don’t know the basis for detention in the first place or the criminal offenses people were alleged to have committed,” Montgomery said during a meeting with The Arizona Republic.
On Wednesday, the Associated Press obtained an e-mail that Gary Mead, ICE’s director of enforcement and removal operations, sent to co-workers, informing them that he was leaving the agency at the end of April. Mead sent the e-mail on Tuesday, hours after U.S. officials confirmed that a few hundred illegal immigrants facing deportation, including the 303 from Pinal County facilities, had been released because of looming budget cuts, the AP said.
Gillian Christensen, an ICE spokeswoman, said in a written statement that Mead announced to senior leadership several weeks ago that he planned to retire after 40 years in federal service, including six years at ICE.
http://www.azcentral.com/news/politi...detainees.html
