Sequester do-over: Feds recaptured 4 immigrants released under budget cuts
The Obama administration said Thursday it had rearrested and brought back four of the most dangerous immigrants it released from detention last month in the run-up to the budget sequestration.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director John Morton testified to Congress that his agency released 10 "level one" offenders, and has gone out and apprehended four of them. He said the other six are nonviolent.
Mr. Morton also acknowledged that overall, 2,228 immigrants were released — far more than the several hundred the agency had initially acknowledged. Of those, 629 had criminal records, though Mr. Morton said they were low-level offenders.
The releases have drawn a stern rebuke from Republicans, who said it showed mismanaged priorities. They also said ICE's concession that it released far more immigrants than it first acknowledged dents the agency's credibility.
"Today's ICE testimony directly contradicts repeated assurances and explanations peddled by the Obama administration in the days after the mass release of illegal aliens became public knowledge," said Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer. "The American people were initially told there were hundreds, not thousands, of individuals released. We were assured they were low-level detainees of little public risk. As we now know, neither of these claims was accurate."
Dozens of members of Congress have written Homeland Security Secretary Janet A. Napolitano and demanded she give more details on the decision-making.
But Mr. Morton said he made the choice on his own without any input from the White House or Ms. Napolitano. Still, he was unable to give many of the exact figures members have demanded to know.
Sen. John Cornyn, Texas Republican and one of those who wrote demanding answers, said Mr. Morton didn't clear up very much.
"Why was the secretary of Homeland Security not aware of the release of convicted criminals by her own agency? Why did she tell us it was only hundreds who were released when we now learn it was thousands?" he said. "This is evidence of serious mismanagement at DHS under Secretary Napolitano."
Mr. Morton said his choice was between maintaining 34,000 immigrants in detention or furloughing ICE agents, which he said would curb the agency's other areas, such as investigations of drug or child pornography cases and money-laundering.
"I don't think it would be good policy to ask us to maintain 34,000 at the expense of those kinds of investigations," Mr. Morton said.
All of the immigrants released are still subject to deportation proceedings, and all of them are supposed to be under some sort of supervision, though not all are being electronically monitored.
Mr. Morton was unable to provide exact numbers on that breakdown to the House's Homeland Security spending subcommittee.
The agency said the decision to release immigrants from custody was partly because of sequestration, but also because it had been detaining more people in the first half of the fiscal year, and had to slow down its pace to fit within its budget.
ICE is funded to detain an average of 34,000 immigrants at any one time but had been detaining up to 36,000 in the early months of the fiscal year, which Mr. Morton said meant they were always going to have to cut the number of people they were holding.
Obama administration acknowledges thousands of illegal immigrants released from jails
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Obama administration reversed itself Thursday, acknowledging to Congress that it had, in fact, released more than 2,000 illegal immigrants from immigration jails due to budget constraints during three weeks in February.
The director of U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, John Morton, said his agency had released 2,228 illegal immigrants during that period for what he called "solely budgetary reasons." The figure was significantly higher than the "few hundred" immigrants the Obama administration had publicly acknowledged were released under the budget-savings process. He testified during a hearing by a House appropriations subcommittee.Morton told lawmakers Thursday that the decision to release the immigrants was not discussed in advance with political appointees, including those in the White House or Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. He said the pending automatic cuts known as sequestration was "driving in the background."
"We were trying to live within the budget that Congress had provided us," Morton told lawmakers. "This was not a White House call. I take full responsibility."
The Associated Press, citing internal budget documents, reported exclusively on March 1 that the administration had released more than 2,000 illegal immigrants since Feb. 15 and planned to release 3,000 more in March due to looming budget cuts, but Napolitano said days later that the AP's report was "not really accurate" and that the story had developed "its own mythology."
"Several hundred are related to sequester, but it wasn't thousands," Napolitano said March 4 at a Politico-sponsored event.
On March 5, the House Judiciary Committee publicly released an internal ICE document that it said described the agency's plans to release thousands of illegal immigrants before March 31. The document was among those reviewed by the AP for its story days earlier.
The immigrants who were released still eventually face deportation and are required to appear for upcoming court hearings. But they are no longer confined in immigration jails, where advocacy experts say they cost about $164 per day per person. Immigrants who are granted supervised release - with conditions that can include mandatory check-ins, home visits and GPS devices - cost the government from 30 cents to $14 a day, according to the National Immigration Forum, a group that advocates on behalf of immigrants.
Morton said Thursday that among the immigrants released were 10 people considered the highest level of offender. Morton said that although that category of offender can include people convicted of aggravated felonies, many of the people released were facing financial crimes. Four of the most serious offenders have been put back in detention. Other people released include immigrants who had faced multiple drunken driving offenses, misdemeanor crimes and traffic offenses, Morton said.
After the administration challenged the AP's reporting, ICE said it didn't know how many people had been released for budget reasons but would review its records.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment