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Four U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials told the this week that the agency has « drafted plans to release thousands of [illegal] immigrants » to cover a $700 million budget shortfall that the now-dead Senate deal was supposed to cover. Arguably worse, ICE also threatened to « slash its capacity to hold detainees. » It’s an upgraded version of the existing catch-and-release system but without the catch part — so much easier, don’t you think?
« The bill’s demise has led ICE officials to begin circulating an internal proposal to save money by releasing thousands of detainees and cutting detention levels from 38,000 beds to 22,000, » the Post reported on Wednesday. « The opposite of the enforcement increases Republicans say they want. »
Let’s call this threat what it really is: political blackmail. « Give the Democrats what they want, » ICE said in effect, « or we’ll unleash even more illegals on you. » And what the Democrats want, I don’t need to remind you, is more illegal aliens.
The Post story also said that according to ICE, a « $700 million deficit is the largest projected shortfall the agency has faced in recent memory.
