Pushing back against a growing Republican conspiracy theory, White House spokesman Jay Carney denied that President Obama or his staff had any knowledge or involvement with a recent decision by immigration officials to release hundreds of detainees in response to looming sequestration cuts.
“This was a decision made by career officials at ICE, without any input from the White House, as a result of fiscal uncertainty over the continuing resolution, as well as possible sequester,” Carney said at a briefing with reporters Wednesday. “As ICE made clear yesterday, the agency released these low-risk, non-criminal detainees under a less expensive form of monitoring to ensure detention levels stayed within ICE’s overall budget. All of these individuals remain in removal proceedings. Priority for detention remains on serious criminal offenders and other individuals who pose a significant threat to public safety. This step affected a few hundred detainees, as you know, out of the over 30,000 currently in ICE detention.”
