U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is considering a plan to reduce its detention capacity significantly after Republicans in Congress blocked a bill that would have provided the agency with more than $7 billion, officials said Wednesday.
To stay within its current budget, ICE would need to cut detention levels by more than 10,000 spots within months, according to documents laying out the proposal, which were obtained by The New York Times. The agency could either release some of the 38,000 people currently in custody, or decline to fill vacant spots as cases get resolved.
Three officials familiar with the plan said it was under active consideration within ICE. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss what they described as contingencies.
Erin Heeter, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, did not comment on specifics of the proposal. “The fact that we are always considering options does not mean we will take action immediately, or at all,” she said.
The proposal was first reported by The Washington Post.
The plan comes at a moment of crisis over immigration in the United States, with record numbers of people crossing into the country and the asylum system all but broken. Bitter politics have paralyzed any movement on the issue, as Republicans seize on it as a political weapon against President Biden.
Mr. Biden has implored Congress to pass bipartisan legislation that would have clamped down on migration at the southern border. But his predecessor and likely challenger in this year’s election, former President Donald J. Trump, pressured Republicans to block the deal, saying it would be a “gift” to Democrats.
In effect, many Republicans now reject a deal they had previously demanded, blocking the kind of measures, like stricter enforcement by ICE, that they have sought for years.
ICE has said it is facing a budget shortfall of hundreds of millions of dollars.
Representative Mark E. Green of Tennessee, the Republican chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said Alejandro N. Mayorkas, the homeland security secretary, was squarely to blame for the problems at the border agency.
“Instead of treating enforcement as a hostage negotiation —‘give us more money or else’ — Secretary Mayorkas should just do his job and follow the law,” Mr. Green said on Wednesday.
He spoke one day after House Republicans impeached Mr. Mayorkas over solid Democratic opposition. The charges against Mr. Mayorkas are expected to be rejected in the Democratic-led Senate.
Democrats said the ICE shortfall was a predictable result of the Republican strategy.
“Republicans have been playing with fire for months, by refusing to fund needed border security operations and instead pursuing a sham impeachment,” said Representative Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, the top Democrat on the Homeland Security Committee. He added that G.O.P. lawmakers’ posturing was “all because Donald Trump wants a political wedge issue to run on in an election year.”
In the past, the Homeland Security Department, which oversees ICE, has moved money from other agencies to cover budget shortfalls. But there have been more drastic moves, as well. In 2013, during the Obama administration, ICE released more than 2,000 detainees from its custody because of budget issues.
The latest ICE proposal said the agency would also have to reduce the number of migrants who are tracked using ankle monitors, which the Biden administration uses as an alternative to detention in some cases, particularly for families with young children.
