After GOP ‘Spiked’ Billions In Funding, ICE Now Running Out of Money And Considering Releasing More Migrants: CNN Reports

CNN reported on Wednesday that budget shortfalls at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement have led to the agency drawing up contingency plans for cutting operations, including scaling back its detention capacity.

“The bipartisan Senate border bill that Republicans spiked last week would have provided ICE with billions in much-needed funding,” began anchor Boris Sanchez, who added:

Without that money incoming, the agency has now drafted contingency plans in the face of a dire budget deficit to the tune of some $700 million. CNN has learned that the plan would require cuts to detention capacity, and therefore imply the release of thousands of migrants currently in their custody. CNN’s Priscilla Alvarez has that story also with us, former ICE acting director John Sandweg. Priscilla, first to you to tell us about these drafted plans from ICE.

“Well, ultimately, what we’re seeing here is that not giving the Department of Homeland Security money has consequences,” Alvarez replied.

“So in this case, Immigration and Customs Enforcement is staring down the $700 million deficit. Some of their priciest items are detention facilities and deportation flights. The latter they don’t want to cut because that’s part of their consequence mechanism so that migrants don’t cross the border. But the former is going to be slashed under these contingency plans, which means that thousands of migrants could be released into the U.S.,” she warned, adding:

Now, we should note here that Ice detains a range of migrants. Some of them have criminal records, some of them don’t. Some of them are slated for removal from the United States. But all of this speaks to what Homeland Security officials have been warning about for months. They’re overwhelmed by the number of people at the border. They can’t they’re not prepared for this volume of people, and now they’re definitely not prepared if they don’t get the money that they’ve asked for by Congress.

And so this congressional inaction is actually having dire consequences for the Department of Homeland Security and the border. Now, a statement from a spokesperson said the following. Without adequate funding for CBP, ICE, and USCIS, the department will have to reprogram or pull resources from other efforts. They’ve done this before. They pull from Coast Guard, TSA. They try to shore up funds, but they don’t know if they’re going to have enough to do it this time around. And that is raising alarm bells even from the white House. And the president, who has blamed Republicans for not giving them him the money he needs to secure the border the way Republicans are asking for.

Watch above via CNN.