America's sheriffs are warning Congress to stop a proposed backroom deal that would institute a ceiling on the number of illegal immigrants that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) can detain.According to letters sent to House and Senate lawmakers on Friday, the
National Sheriffs' Association (NSA) and the
Major Country Sheriffs of America claim that if ICE is forced to release detainees, over 8,300 criminal illegals will be sent to the streets and potentially lost to the administrative and judicial systems.
The letters were obtained by The Daily Caller Sunday after contacting the NSA.
Joint Letter on ICE Budget - SenateThe brokered agreement would mandate that ICE can hold no more than 16,500 people at a time. The
negotiations began last December as part of the talks surrounding the partial government shutdown. Discussions resumed after the reopening of the federal government and are
reportedly ongoing with
another shutdown potentially looming.
(RELATED: Raid Leads To More Than 100 ICE Arrests In New York)"Capping the number of detention beds utilized by ICE not only jeopardizes the integrity of the immigration system, but would cripple ICE's ability to detain criminal aliens and other aliens who pose a risk to public safety or are a flight risk," the letters read. One letter was sent to Alabama Republican Sen. Richard Shelby, Vermont Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy, while a second identical letter was sent to Texas Republican Rep. Kay Granger and New York Democratic Rep. Nita Lowey.
The letter warned, "Any legislation that reduces ICE's detention capacity would hinder its ability to perform its national security and public safety missions, but also impact local law enforcement's ability to protect the communities they serve. In order to meet the cap being tentatively proposed by Congress, ICE would be compelled to release thousands of aliens from custody."
The correspondence noted,
"Over 90 percent of ICE's arrests are aliens who have a criminal conviction, have been arrested for a criminal, or have been previously removed. Placing a cap on ICE detention beds will undermine the efficacy of the immigration system and reduce the number of aliens who are removed from the United States."
Comment: The Washington Examiner
reports more on the story:
"We are at wits end on this," said Bristol County, Mass. Sheriff Thomas M. Hodgson. "This really is a catastrophe," he said of the anti-Trump proposal backed by Democrats including Speaker Nancy Pelosi and progressive Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Hodgson is one of 60 key sheriffs meeting with the House Freedom Caucus on the steps of the U.S. Capitol today before hitting individual House and Senate offices to lobby for wall and ICE funding. He spoke to Secrets from the bus transporting him and sheriffs from Arizona, Texas, Massachusetts and Ohio to the Hill. [...]
Hodgson said that his jail holds some 200 criminal illegal immigrants and he bluntly said that if any were to be freed, they would go out and commit more crimes.
"We'd have to release these people to go out and commit more crimes," he said.
He also charged that threats to ICE funding, made by lawmakers including Ocasio-Cortez, and cuts to the cap on how many criminal illegal immigrants can be held, is a bid by Democrats to please their liberal base of supporters.
"They put our people at risk just to take care of their political agenda," said Hodgson, a leading spokesman among the nation's 3,000 sheriffs for immigration enforcement.
Comment: The Washington Examiner reports more on the story: