Immigration Consequences of the Sequester: ICE Releases Detainees Across the Country

Contributed by Kim Tremblay, Associate Attorney

In the last two months, everyone has been talking about the sequester, the $85 billion in budget cuts the federal government has started to make March 1.  This is the result of the Budget Control Act of 2012, which included a clause that would trim the U.S. deficit by one trillion dollars over the next ten years with massive across the board cuts to domestic and military programs.  The sequester calls for cuts of the same percentage to all the programs involved and does not allow higher cost cutting of programs that are inefficient or less essential.

There are many unanswered questions about the sequester.  Federal government officials are unsure exactly how and when some of the cuts will affect the public and the economy. 

However, certain government agencies are already taking steps to deal with the cuts and the sequester’s consequences are becoming concrete.  For example, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”) released hundreds of immigrant detainees across the country at the end of February.  ICE detains some immigrants in deportation proceedings while they await their hearings.  It has released certain immigrants without criminal histories and immigrants with non-serious criminal histories on supervised release.  These immigrants are obliged to check in with ICE periodically and to attend their deportation hearings.  This measure is said to be saving ICE over $100 per day per released detainee.  ICE is currently detaining over 30,000 immigrants at an estimated cost of $122 and $164 per day.  The agency may release more low detention priority immigrants in the future to accommodate budget cuts.      

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