Republicans and Democrats each claim the new budget proposal advances their immigration agendas. At issue: how much money the budget should provide for migrant detention.
After prompting the longest government shutdown in history, President Trump’s divisive proposal for a border wall has taken a back seat in recent days for negotiators in Congress who are seeking to avoid another crippling closure. The latest talks have focused on another immigration issue that has quietly exploded in recent months: Record numbers of migrants being held in cramped detention centers.
Under orders to end the process that the president calls “catch and release,” the authorities have arrested and jailed tens of thousands of migrants since Mr. Trump took office, and Republicans would like it to stay that way.
Democrats argue that ordinary immigrants around the country are being unnecessarily plucked from their families and jailed, and newly arrived migrants are being forced to wait unreasonable lengths of time in harsh detention centers.
At issue is how much money the budget should provide for detention. Without more money, the authorities will have to scale back on arrests.
“We’ll be releasing gang members. We’ll be releasing individuals convicted of domestic violence and drug crimes,” said Matthew Albence, deputy director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. “We will not be able to respond to as many calls as we do today. And in fact, in many of these calls, we’re going to tell them, ‘Just release them,’ because we have no choice.”
Democrats point out that more than a quarter of current ICE detainees are not subject to mandatory detention under the law.
Both Republicans and Democrats are citing competing data to claim that the new budget proposal advances their goals. Here’s what the plan really says:
Months of brinkmanship between Congress and the White House over the border wall have distracted from the issue of detention, which has now reached a breaking point, with the authorities being urged by the White House to arrest more immigrants than they can currently afford to detain.
