A
Anonymous
Guest
Decision to release illegal immigrants because of sequester slammed by GOP
By Jordy Yager - 02/26/13 05:39 PM ET
Republicans are condemning the Obama administration’s decision to release several hundred illegal immigrants from detention facilities because of possible funding cuts from the sequester.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) said the move jeopardized public safety and cut into the trust Republicans and the White House have tried to cultivate in discussions on immigration reform.
“It’s abhorrent that President Obama is releasing criminals into our communities to promote his political agenda on sequestration,” Goodlatte said in a statement. “By releasing criminal immigrants onto the streets, the administration is needlessly endangering American lives.”
Goodlatte, who will play a key role in the immigration debate as Judiciary’s chairman, said the move “undermines our efforts to come together with the administration and reform our nation’s immigration laws.”
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) released the illegal immigrants this week for fear the $85 billion in automatic spending cuts widely expected to be triggered on Friday would limit the number of detainees they could pay to house.
ICE officials reviewed several hundred cases and released detainees on special supervision programs that cost less than keeping them in detention centers, according to agency spokeswoman Gillian Christensen. Christensen stressed that the agency is still detaining people seen as posing a significant threat to the public’s safety. While Christensen did not specify how many people had been released, she said that they would remain in deportation proceedings and have not been granted any form of temporary residency or citizenship.
“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,” said Christensen.
“ICE has reviewed several hundred cases and placed these individuals on methods of supervision less costly than detention. 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,” she said.
Read more: http://thehill.com/homenews/house/285035-decision-to-release-illegal-immigrants-because-of-sequester-slammed-by-gop#ixzz2M39t4KCd
Follow us: @thehill on Twitter | TheHill on Facebook
Is this Senator Goodlatte for real? Does he not realize when you reduce budgets- you must cut services and/or expenditures ? And it costs money to hold prisoners... This has been done by State for years- when they didn't have the funding/room to hold them anymore they went thru and selected the most eligible prisoners for release and released them....
The true comedy is that this reminds me of the 90's-- when many federal budgets got slashed including ICE- who then for years would run out of funding about 1/2 way thru the fiscal year- and not be able to hold or transport anymore illegals- so would then have to issue them Notice to Appears to show up on a later date when they again had funds so the could be deported.... :roll: :lol: Guess how many showed up :???:
That's half the reason we have so many illegals in the country today...