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5 Reasons To Release Most Immigrant Detainees

5 Reasons To Release Most Immigrant Detainees
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By 

National Reporter, HuffPost

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FLORENCE, AZ - FEBRUARY 28: Immigrant detainees walk through the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), detention facility on February 28, 2013 in Florence, Arizona. With the possibility of federal budget sequestration, ICE released 303 immigration detainees in the last week from detention facilities throught Arizona. More than 2,000 immigration detainees remain in ICE custody in the state. Most detainees typically remain in custody for several weeks before they are deported to their home country, while others remain for longer periods while their immigration cases work through the courts. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)
5 Reasons To Release Immigrant Detainees
It's cheaper(01 of05)
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And we mean waaaaaaayyyyy cheaper. According to the National Immigration forum, it costs somewhere between $122 and $164 per day to keep someone in immigration detention. That works out to about $5.4 million per day, and almost $2 billion per year. The Department of Homeland Security estimates that using alternatives to detention –such as monitoring people electronically, or with telephonic or in-person reporting, curfews and home visits -- cost anywhere from $0.30 to $14 per day per person. Even using the most expensive monitoring alternatives for people without serious crimes on their records could save a whopping 82 percent in detention costs -- about $1.6 billion per year. How’s that for small government? (credit:This March 1, 2013 photo illustration Taken in Manassas, Virginia, shows the US Capitol on the back of the twenty USD bill. US President Barck Obama met Friday with US Speaker of the House John Boehner and Congressional leaders. Obama summoned congression)
It’s consistent with the administration's stated goals(02 of05)
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The Obama administration, which deported a record-setting 409,849 people last year, says it’s committed to focusing its enforcement efforts on serious criminals using prosecutorial discretion. So why indiscriminately cram people into detention by the thousands? A study by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University found that of the nearly 1 million people ICE slapped with an immigration hold over the last four years, only 23 percent had been convicted of a crime and only 8.6 percent with a serious crime. (credit:In this undated photo, immigrants walk to hearings at the Stewart Detention Center in Lupmkin, Ga. A week before mandatory budget cuts go into effect across the government, the Department of Homeland Security has started releasing undocumented immigrants )
Most of these people aren’t criminals(03 of05)
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Many people that wind up in immigration detention are only being detained for the civil violation of overstaying a visa and residing in the country illegally. Many others only have minor stains on their records, like traffic violations. Why jail them like criminals? (credit:In this undated photo, immigrants play soccer at the Stewart Detention Center in Lupmkin, Ga. A week before mandatory budget cuts go into effect across the government, the Department of Homeland Security has started releasing undocumented immigrants being)
It's a double-standard(04 of05)
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While politicians like Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer raise a ruckus about ICE releasing immigrant detainees that don’t have criminal records, jails across the country are already releasing real criminals due to overcrowding. In one disturbing case, California authorities were willing to release a sex offender with mental health problems who violated parole and repeatedly tampered with his GPS tracker. He is now accused of murdering his grandmother. Why should immigrants without criminal records be held to a higher standard? (credit:Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, left, gestures asIshe speaks to a reporter before the start of a Health and Homeland Security Committee meeting on Protecting Our Nation: States and Cybersecurity during the National Governors Association 2013 Winter Meeting i)
It keeps families together. (05 of05)
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If there’s very little risk of flight and the detainee doesn’t have a criminal record, what’s the logic in keeping the person separated from his or her family while awaiting deportation proceedings?

As the country braces itself for the increasingly likely possibility of getting hit with $85 billion in budget cuts this year, the decision to release several hundred immigrant detainees to save money has sparked fury among immigration hardliners.

It shouldn't come as a surprise, however, that ICE would want to lighten its load of detainees if the agency is facing looming budget cuts. As Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano said Thursday, it costs six times more to hold an immigrant in detention than to let them go and monitor them.

An ICE official told Reuters that the federal government is currently spending about $119 per day per immigrant detainee. Using alternative ways to monitor detainees -- like GPS monitors or scheduling visits with a caseworker -- could bring that cost down to somewhere between $0.17 and $17.78.

Despite all the hoopla, most immigrants in detention aren't hardened criminals. A study by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University found that of the nearly 1 million people ICE slapped with an immigration hold over the last four years, only 23 percent had been convicted of a crime and only 8.6 percent with a serious crime.

So we keep treating undocumented immigrants like criminals?

Check out these 5 reasons why it makes sense to use alternative methods to monitor most immigrants in detention. Let us know what you think in the comments.

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Before You Go

6 Misconceptions About The Border
The U.S.-Mexico border is violent(01 of06)
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It certainly is in some places, but those don't tend to be on the U.S. side. In fact, El Paso, Texas and San Diego, California are the two safest cities in the country, according to Congressional Quarterly. While Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer has repeatedly said the border in her state is dangerous, crime statistics reported by USA Today and The Huffington Post show that violent crime has dropped along the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona, as well as California, New Mexico and Texas. (credit:AP)
The porous U.S.-Mexico border is vulnerable to terrorists(02 of06)
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That’s not the assessment of the U.S. government. The Mexico section of the most recent State Department's Country Reports on Terrorism reads:
No known international terrorist organization had an operational presence in Mexico and no terrorist group targeted U.S. citizens in or from Mexican territory. There was no evidence of ties between Mexican criminal organizations and terrorist groups, nor that the criminal organizations had political or territorial control, aside from seeking to protect and expand the impunity with which they conduct their criminal activity.
H/T: Washington Office on Latin America. (credit:In this photo provided by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, a silver Jeep Cherokee that suspected smugglers were attempting to drive over the U.S.-Mexico border fence is stuck at the top of a makeshift ramp early Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2012 near Yuma, )
The border is insecure(03 of06)
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Depends on how you define "secure." By practically all measurements, the border is at its most secure point in recent history. There's more than 20,000 Border Patrol agents stationed along the border now -- about double the number since 2004. Apprehensions along the border, one of the most reliable measures of illegal entry, are at their lowest level in 40 years. But politicians have yet to agree on how to define what "secure" will mean for legal purposes. (credit:In this Sept. 4, 2012, photo, Max Pons, manager of the Nature Conservancy's southernmost preserve, walks past the U.S.-Mexico border fence in Brownsville, Texas. (AP))
Obama has been soft on enforcement(04 of06)
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Not so. In fact, it's one of the biggest gripes immigration activists have with him. While Obama has exempted many people who came to the United States as children from deportation, he has also set records, deporting over 400,000 people last fiscal year and removing more migrants in one term than George W. Bush did in two. (credit:A group of undocumented immigrants wait in line while being deported to Mexico at the Nogales Port of Entry in Nogales, Ariz., Wednesday, July 28, 2010. (AP))
The U.S. hasn't committed enough resources to securing the border(05 of06)
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Again, depends on who you ask. The $18 billion the federal government spent on border enforcement in the 2012 fiscal year was more than it spent on than on other law enforcement agencies combined, according to the Migration Policy Institute -- about 15 times more than it did in the mid-1980s. Is that enough, especially in a context in which illegal immigration stands at net zero? If, not, what is? (credit:In this Aug. 9, 2012 file photo, a U.S. Border Patrol vehicle keeps watch along the border fence in Nogales, Ariz. (AP))
Illegal immigration continues to skyrocket(06 of06)
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Nope. For all the talk from outraged politicians, you'd think that immigration along the U.S.-Mexico border remains at historically high levels. In fact, illegal immigration from Mexico has dropped to net zero or less, according to the Pew Hispanic Center. (credit:In this May 18, 2006 file photo, a man rests his hands on a fence looking out to the United States from a Mexican customs station after being detained by U.S. Border Patrol in Arizona and returned to Mexico in Nogales, Mexico. The border near Nogales is c)
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