(NewsNation) — U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is seeking more funding from the Department of Homeland Security as its dwindling budget makes it harder to track migrants who have committed crimes in the country.
ICE is facing a $1 billion deficit, causing issues in detention and deportation procedures. The department has reportedly been forced to redeploy some of its fugitive operations and deportation officers back to regular enforcement efforts as ICE reports a rise in migrant crimes.
After exclusive NewsNation reporting revealed some of these issues, GOP Texas Rep. Tony Gonzales set a meeting with the acting ICE director.
“I can’t thank you enough for flagging that for us and highlighting the fact that ICE is essentially saying, ‘If I don’t get this money, I’m gonna have to release all these people.’ That’s the wrong answer. And we want to get back to enforcing the law. Can you help us? So I look forward to working together with them, making sure they have the resources for these deportation flights, as well as hunting down some of these criminal illegal aliens,” Gonzales told NewsNation.
Meanwhile, some in Washington are arguing the Senate border bill that failed last month would have addressed some of these issues.
The director of ICE’s New York field office tells NewsNation that staffing is only part of the problem and that the lack of collaboration from New York law enforcement is also hampering efforts.
“They will not honor those detainers, and they released the individuals back into the community, which, unfortunately, is a public safety issue for the community. But it’s also a public safety issue for my staff because now we’re behind the eight ball. We have to try and find these individuals after they’ve been released. A lot of them are transient. They move around and, you know, out in the field, the criminals have the upper hand as opposed to taking custody of them,” said Kenneth Genalo.
Some of the individuals who are slipping through these cracks have been accused of committing serious crimes, including University of Georgia killing suspect Jose Ibarra.
On Tuesday, DHS sources told NewsNation that the man being held for the deadly car crash that killed Washington State Patrol trooper Christopher Gadd illegally immigrated to the U.S. in 2013. Law enforcement has had multiple encounters with that suspect in the years since.
This comes as an influx of migrants entering the U.S. continues, with at least 7,000 crossing the southern border daily since Saturday, according to sources. At the same time last year, the border saw between 6,000 and 6,500 migrants every day.