Senior DHS Official Steps Down
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. Gary Mead Retires After Immigrants Are Freed Because Of Spending Cuts 
The
senior Homeland Security Department official in charge of arresting and
deporting undocumented immigrants announced his retirement the same day the
agency said that hundreds of people facing deportation had been released from
immigration jails due to looming budget cuts, according to a letter obtained
Wednesday by The Associated Press. The government said he had told his bosses
weeks ago that he planned to retire.
Gary
Mead, executive associate director over enforcement and removal operations at
Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, disclosed his departure in an email to
his staff Tuesday afternoon. The announcement of the release of the
undocumented immigrants had come earlier in the day.
President
Barack Obama's spokesman, Jay Carney, said Wednesday that the decision to
release the immigrants was made without any input from the White House. He
described the immigrants as "low-risk, non-criminal detainees."
The
announcement that a few hundred undocumented immigrants were being released
was among the most significant and direct implications described so far by the
Obama administration about the pending, automatic budget cuts that will take
effect later this week under what is known as sequestration.
Republicans
in Congress quickly criticized the decision and pressed the Homeland Security
Department for details.
In an
email to his staff obtained by the AP, Mead said he was leaving the agency at
the end of April "with mixed emotions." He did not say what
prompted his departure. Mead did not immediately respond to an email and a
telephone call.
A
spokeswoman for the agency, Gillian Christensen, said there was no connection
between Mead's announcement to his staff and the decision to release the
undocumented immigrants. She said Mead had told senior leaders in the agency
several weeks ago that he planned to retire.
Mead
said Tom Homan will succeed him as acting executive associate director.
At the
White House, Carney said the decision to release what he described as "a
few hundred" of the 30,000 undocumented immigrants in federal detention
was made by "career officials" at the immigration agency. He said
the immigrants who were released were still subject to deportation.
"All
of these individuals remain in removal proceedings," Carney said.
"Priority for detention remains on serious criminal offenders and other
individuals who pose a significant threat to public safety."
ICE is
required by Congress to maintain 34,000 immigration jail beds. As of last
week, the agency held an average daily population of 30,733 in its jails.
Homeland
Security Secretary Janet Napolitano warned this week that DHS might not be
able to afford to maintain those 34,000 jail beds and that mandatory budget
cuts would hurt the department's core missions.
"I
don't think we can maintain the same level of security at all places around
the country with sequester as without sequester," said Napolitano,
adding that the impact would be "like a rolling ball. It will keep
growing."
According
to the National Immigration Forum, it costs the government about $164 a day
to keep an undocumented immigrant facing deportation jailed. In a report on
immigration detention costs last year, the advocacy group said costs for
supervised release can range from about 30 cents to $14 a day.
Republican
lawmakers have decried the jail releases. The chairman of the House Homeland
Security Committee, Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, sent a letter Wednesday to
ICE Director John Morton asking who was released and what was being done to
keep track of them.
"This
decision reflects the lack of resource prioritization within the Department
of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement and is
indicative of the department's weak stance on national security," McCaul
wrote.
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