Director Morton's Testimony Doesn't Add Up

Washington, D.C. - Today, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Director John Morton testified before the House Judiciary Committee regarding criminal and illegal immigrants who are priorities for removal but were released by the agency, which claimed release was necessary due to sequestration.   However, several of the claims made by Director Morton do not match the facts and here’s why:

At today’s hearing, Director Morton blamed the release of criminal and illegal immigrants on the lack of funding in the Continuing Resolution (CR) and the sequester.  But the CR funded ICE above their budgetary request and provided the required funding to maintain detention beds at their average daily requirement of 34,000 through the end of March.  Meanwhile, an internal ICE document shows that the agency began releasing detainees on February 15 and had already released thousands of criminal and illegal immigrants ahead of sequestration. 

In addition, while the sequester cuts the agency’s funding by 5%, the savings resulting from the decision to mass release criminal and illegal immigrants into the population goes well above 5%.  A 5% reduction of 34,000 detention beds is about 1,700, but ICE has already released over 2,200 criminal and illegal immigrants and the plan was to reduce the daily population by 5,000.

Furthermore, Director Morton today acknowledged that he could have made a reprogramming request to Congress or could have used other funds to keep criminals off of our streets.  However, he did not provide any reasoning as to why he did not make such a request. 

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) released the statement below regarding these inconsistencies.  

Chairman Goodlatte: “Director Morton’s testimony given to the House Judiciary Committee today doesn’t add up.  U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement had more than enough money to continue detaining criminal and illegal immigrants that are priorities for removal and could have made a reprogramming request to Congress if the money ran out.  But Director Morton never made such a request nor provided any rationale as to what is more important than keeping criminal immigrants off of our streets. 

“In addition, the sequester mandated a 5% cut at ICE but the agency released more than 5% of detained criminal and illegal immigrants.  These facts make it appear that the decision to release more than 600 convicted criminals and others facing charges into our communities was more of a political calculation than a budgetary necessity.   This decision not only undermines ICE’s credibility but also undercuts the American people’s trust in this Administration’s ability to enforce our immigration laws.”