Republicans, alongside a handful of Democrats, are advancing a major immigration crackdown bill known as the Laken Riley Act, which would set new requirements to detain immigrants accused of non-violent offenses and give federal judges sweeping new powers to ban whole nationalities of people from obtaining visas. The bill has sounded alarms among legal experts who fear it will gut both due process and the separation of powers.
But there's another problem, Axios reported: Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, is concerned that the bill, as written, would force them to detain more people than they actually have room for, giving them no choice but to release some suspects — even those who may be dangerous.
According to the report, ICE officials "sent details to congressional offices in December on what they would need to enforce the Laken Riley Act if it became law" and "warned that without emergency funding, they could be forced to release tens of thousands of immigrants — including potentially some deemed to be public safety threats."
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ICE believes that there are more than 60,000 undocumented immigrants who would meet requirements for mandatory arrest and detention under the bill, but they only have 42,000 available detention beds, 39,000 of which are already in use, and 62 percent of whom could not legally be released under existing law.
Meanwhile, the Laken Riley Act does not provide any increased funding for detention facilities, even though ICE estimates they would need around $3.2 billion in the 2025 fiscal year alone to enforce it.
A staff official for Rep. Katie Britt (R-AL), who introduced the bill in the Senate, acknowledged the problem to Axios, and suggested Republicans will pass the funding to enforce the Laken Riley Act separately, during the GOP's upcoming plan to pass several of their tax, energy, and border policies in a sweeping budget reconciliation bill: "We're prepared to give ICE the resources it needs to properly enforce federal law and protect American families, both through the appropriations and reconciliation processes."
This comes amid separate reporting that the GOP is eyeing a number of cuts to key public programs to fund their priorities in the reconciliation bill, including Medicare, the Affordable Care Act, and climate programs.