ImmigrationWith budget cuts looming, ICE releases undocumented immigrants from detention

With budget cuts hanging over federal agencies, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has started to prepare for the cuts by releasing detainees from its detention facilities across the country on Monday.

DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano discussed the situation Monday at a press briefing. “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?”

The Huffington Post reports that the American Civil Liberties Union calculated that it can cost between $122 and $164 dollars  to detain one person per day, but alternatives such as ankle bracelets and parole can cost significantly less.

“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.

Christensen said the freed prisoners were “placed on an appropriate, more cost-effective form of supervised release.” ICE will still deport the individuals if an immigration judge orders it.

The Obama administration has made it known they planned on releasing immigrants who are considered low priority in order to focus on more dangerous or high priority targets. ICE has said the administration has set a record for deportations since Obama’s term began in 2008.

Advocacy groups and immigrant’s rights groups, which have fought for the release of low priority immigrants the last few years, argued the decision to release low priority inmates was long overdue.

“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.”