DHS agency to scour jails for illegal immigrants

The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency is preparing to bring hundreds of investigators on board to combat illegal immigration, its chief told employees Tuesday.

In a memorandum provided to Government Executive, Julie Myers, the head of ICE, said that President Bush's fiscal 2008 budget request, should it succeed in Congress, would allow the agency to hire 220 investigators who will scour jails and prisons for illegal immigrants. ICE's Criminal Alien Program tracks these aliens, and Myers predicted that with the increase in staff, as many as 66,000 illegal aliens might be captured via the program.

"The increase provides for the deployment of 22 additional 10-person CAP teams," Myers wrote in the memo, distributed by e-mail Tuesday. "An estimated 600 interviews, resulting in 300 apprehensions, will be made by each CAP officer."

The budget would not provide ICE with as big an increase as the Customs and Border Protection agency, also within the Homeland Security Department. According to DHS documents, the fiscal 2008 budget would grant ICE about $4.8 billion, an increase of 7.6 percent over the amount enacted in fiscal 2007. CBP's funding under the president's proposed budget would be about $8.8 billion, marking an increase of about 35.4 percent over the amount it received in 2007.

But in the memo, Myers said the president's funding request "reflects … confidence" in ICE.

Myers also said that about $26.4 million of ICE's 2008 budget would go toward training 250 state and local law enforcement officers in a program that allows for voluntary participation in the Homeland Security Department's efforts to curtail illegal immigration.

"Participation is voluntary, and delegation is granted only after extensive training from ICE," Myers wrote in the e-mail.

In addition, the budget would allow ICE to establish a 37-person Improved Integrity Oversight office within its Office of Professional Responsibility. Myers said the new office would "conduct criminal and serious misconduct investigations involving the activities of ICE and CBP employees deployed domestically and overseas."

The announcement of additional oversight comes on the heels of an inspector general report detailing mistreatment of detainees at several ICE detention facilities, and a contractor's firing over an alleged rape at an agency jail. No charges were filed in the case.

Despite the increased targeting of illegal immigrants in the workplace and elsewhere, the president's budget allows for just 950 more beds to be set up via contracts with detention facilities. Immigration agency sources were critical of what they said would create burdensome jams of illegal aliens in jails. However, the agency has been processing illegal immigrants for deportation at a faster pace than ever before, now that it has done away with the catch-and-release policy of releasing apprehended illegal immigrants and expecting them to return for deportation hearings.

"It's ridiculous," one ICE source said of the increase in bed space, which would bring the nationwide total of detention beds to 28,450. "Why even bother?"