The big winners in the enormous budget cuts that will gut the federal government: undocumented immigrants! The Department of Homeland Security has released from its jails more than 2000 immigrants who were facing deportation, well above the number that the Obama administration said would be (which is a shame for the Obama administration, which just loves deporting people).
The White House, which was not consulted about the releases, has asked Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano (pictured above, looking unhappy) to temporarily stop releasing the immigrants. There are currently 30,000 immigrants being held in federal detention waiting for deportation proceedings.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman Brian Hale left the door open for more releases. "As fiscal uncertainty remains over the continuing resolution and possible sequestration, ICE reviewed its detained population to ensure detention levels stay within ICE's current budget and placed several hundred individuals on methods of supervision less costly than detention," he said in a statement. "At this point, we don't anticipate additional releases, but that could change."
An extremely simple way to resolve some of America's fiscal woes would be to continue to reduce our massive Federal prison complex, which cost taxpayers $39 billion last year.