Thread: I.C.E. Frees Detainees As Sequester Looms

Immigration and Customs Enforcement Frees Detainees As Sequester Looms
Posted: 02/25/2013 7:33 pm EST

WASHINGTON -- Immigration and Customs Enforcement released some people from immigrant detention facilities across the country on Monday in response to looming federal budget cuts.

"In order to make the best use of our limited detention resources in the current fiscal climate and to manage our detention population under current congressionally mandated levels, ICE has directed field offices to review the detained population to ensure it is in line with available funding," agency spokeswoman Gillian Christensen said in a statement.

ICE and the Department of Homeland Security are analyzing spending as congressional inaction increases the likelihood of so-called budget sequestration -- across-the-board spending cuts that begin on March 1. Detaining immigrants is an expensive business, with an average daily cost of $122 to $164 per person, according to the American Civil Liberties Union. Alternatives, including ankle bracelets and parole, are far cheaper.

Christensen declined to say how many undocumented immigrants were freed on Monday or to give their locations. She said they have been "placed on an appropriate, more cost-effective form of supervised release." ICE did not drop the cases against the individuals and will still deport them if ordered by an immigration judge, she said.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano foreshadowed the announcement earlier in the day at a press briefing. She said ICE "will be forced" under sequestration to reduce detention and removal of undocumented immigrants.

"All I can say is, look, we're doing our very best to minimize the impacts of sequester," Napolitano told reporters at the White House. "But there’s only so much I can do. I'm supposed to have 34,000 detention beds for immigration. How do I pay for those?"

Immigrant rights groups began buzzing Monday with reports from detention centers, where they said low-priority detainees had been released in large numbers. Activists have long called for ICE to release some detainees, either to allow them to stay in the United States or to keep them out of prison-like detention centers until they are deported. The rights groups have argued that the Obama administration has violated its stated principle of focusing on the most dangerous undocumented immigrants in favor of padding numbers by going after low-level offenders instead, as reported by USA Today earlier this month.

The Obama administration has repeatedly said it will apply more prosecutorial discretion to immigration, releasing immigrants deemed low-priority so it can focus resources on those who are potentially dangerous or otherwise a high priority. The administration also implemented the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program that has so far allowed more than 150,000 undocumented young people -- often called Dreamers -- to stay in the United States, work legally and drive.

According to ICE, the administration has increased the proportion of criminal immigrants it has expelled, while setting a record for deportations overall.

Advocacy groups said they were pleased that ICE released some detained undocumented immigrants.

"The people being released today are people ICE could have released months -- or in some cases, years -- ago," Mohammad Abdollahi, a member of the Dreamer-led National Immigrant Youth Alliance, said in a statement. "If ICE adhered to its own policies, they would have. As the president continues to push for immigration reform, his record on deportations will only stand in greater contrast with the policies he has proposed."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/25/immigration-and-customs-enforcement-sequester_n_2761941.html

Feb 25, 2013 - 7:13 pm

LOS ANGELES (AP) - The Associated Press has learned that federal immigration authorities have released a number of detainees around the country to save money.

Gillian Christensen, spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Washington, D.C., said Monday that field offices have been directed to review their numbers of detained immigrants to ensure the jail populations stay within budgeted resources.

Christensen says an unspecified number of immigrants have been released and placed on more cost-effective forms of supervision.

She says she did not have further details about those forms of supervision or how many people have been released.

Christensen says the agency will continue to pursue the cases in court and deport people when necessary.

Immigration activists say the agency most likely released detainees in California, Texas, Florida, and New Jersey

Immigration detainees released in budget crunch - United States News - KTAR.com

Added first article above to the Homepage:
http://www.alipac.us/content/i-c-e-f...er-looms-1406/

"hundreds of detainees were freed in numerous locations around the country, including Hudson County, N.J.; Polk County, Texas; Broward County, Fla.; and New Orleans; and from centers in Arizona, Alabama, Georgia and New York."

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/27/us...cuts.html?_r=0

http://www.alipac.us/f12/wave-illega...t-cuts-273511/

February 26, 2013
Judicial Watch

Never one to let a crisis go to waste, President Obama is using impending budget cuts to justify releasing “waves” of illegal immigrants from detention centers throughout the country.

Groups of illegal aliens have been freed this week from facilities in Texas, Florida and Louisiana, according to a mainstream newspaper story that quotes advocates reporting “waves” being released. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) confirmed the secret liberation program, but wouldn’t say how many illegal immigrants were let go or what facilities they came from.

One appreciative illegal immigrant, Manuel Perez, actually issued a statement after getting released from a detention center in Livingston Texas this week: “Lots of us are getting out who were brought in for driving without a license or other small things,” Perez wrote. “I hope more of us are able to get out soon.”

The move comes at a time when the president has embarked on a major campaign to convince the nation that impeding budget cuts will harm national security, specifically border protection and the enforcement of federal immigration laws. Ironically, releasing incarcerated illegal immigrants into the general population can certainly threaten the security of the communities where they are freed.

Here is the statement from ICE that appears in the story: “In order to make the best use of our limited detention resources in the current fiscal climate and to manage our detention population under current congressionally mandated levels, ICE has directed field offices to review the detained population to ensure it is in line with available funding. As a result of this review, a number of detained aliens have been released around the country and placed on an appropriate, more cost-effective form of supervised release.”

Just a few months ago the administration used another crisis, a hurricane, as an excuse to assist illegal immigrants who have flouted U.S. law. The president actually created a special storm amnesty to justify waiving immigration laws, including for violators of student visas like the 9/11 hijackers who murdered thousands of Americans.

The unprecedented move came last November after Hurricane Sandy hit the northeast. In an announcement posted by the Homeland Security agency handling the initiative, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the Obama administration said it “understands that a natural disaster can affect an individual’s ability to maintain a lawful immigration status.”

Among the “benefits or relief” offered under the plan is “expedited adjudication of off-campus employment authorization applications for F-1 students experiencing economic hardship.” This would apply to foreign students like the al-Qaeda terrorists who trained as pilots in U.S. flight schools and purposely slammed commercial airplanes into the World Trade Center and Pentagon in 2001. All entered and lived in the U.S. with student visas and remained in the country even after they expired. One of the hijackers had enrolled—but never attended—a northern California language school.

U.S. Releases

By Stephen Dinan
The Washington Times
Tuesday, February 26, 2013

The sequester is officially still three days away, but the Obama administration already is making the first cuts, with officials confirming that the Homeland Security Department already has released several hundred illegal immigrants from detention in order to save money.

The move is proving controversial. Immigrant-rights groups say it shows the administration was detaining folks it never should have gone after in the first place, while Republicans questioned the decision-making.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the agency that runs the detention facilities, said that with both sequesters and the annual spending bills looming, officials have tried to find places to cut, and releasing low-priority immigrants is one of those ways.

"Over the last week, ICE has reviewed several hundred cases and placed these individuals on methods of supervision less costly than detention," ICE said in a statement. "All of these individuals remain in removal proceedings. Priority for detention remains on serious criminal offenders and other individuals who pose a significant threat to public safety."

While being released from detention, the illegal immigrants are still subject to supervision — either by electronic device or by being required to check in with ICE by phone or in person.

The move first was reported by The Huffington Post on Monday.

The sequesters are $85 billion in spending cuts this year, followed by equivalent cuts for the rest of this decade. They were set in motion by the 2011 debt deal and will require across-the-board cuts to all government spending save for entitlements such as Social Security.

The cuts take effect on Friday, and all sides on Capitol Hill say they want to avert them — though they cannot agree on how to do so.

The Obama administration, which wants to see the cuts replaced in large part by new tax increases, has warned that the sequesters will hurt national security.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano on Monday told reporters at the White House that she would be forced to furlough Border Patrol agents, pulling them from their rounds along the U.S.-Mexico border.

She also hinted at the decision to release illegal immigrants, saying she would not be able to maintain the full slate of 34,000 detention beds mandated by Congress.

"How am I supposed to pay for those? There's only so much I can do," she said.

United We Dream, an immigrant-rights group, said the releases show the administration had been keeping folks detained who never should have been there.

"Low-priority individuals — people who pose absolutely no risk or danger to society, but rather are upstanding members of their communities and families — should not have been locked up to begin with," said Carolina Canizales, coordinator of United We Dream's End Our Pain program.

Republicans said that the Homeland Security budget remains high and that the total amount of cuts is only slightly more than 5 percent of ICE's budget. They argued that the savings could come from maintenance funds instead of operations.

Sen. Jeff Sessions, an Alabama Republican who opposes President Obama's immigration plans, said that releasing illegal immigrants could make it tougher for the president to win passage of a legalization bill this year.

"The last thing you would do to meet a budget cut of this size would be to voluntarily undertake actions that undermine the rule of law and endanger the public safety," he said. "It is clear the administration is using the sequester as a convenient excuse to bow to political pressure from the amnesty groups, as it did with its unilateral decision to confer legal status on millions who are not lawfully present."

And Rep. Bob Goodlatte, a Virginia Republican who as House Judiciary Committee chairman oversees ICE, called the decision "abhorrent."

"By releasing criminal immigrants onto the streets, the administration is needlessly endangering American lives," Mr. Goodlatte said. "It also undermines our efforts to come together with the Administration and reform our nation's immigration laws. Unfortunately, this Administration has a poor record of enforcing our immigration laws and has routinely sought to undermine them."

Illegal immigrants set free from detention centers as sequester approaches - Washington Times