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INS SCRAPS PLAN TO BEGIN RELEASING NONVIOLENT CRIMINAL ALIENS
Last fall, the INS was mandated by Congress to detain aliens with convictions for aggravated felonies. The INS vocally complained at the time that it did not have the resources to meet this requirement, but the agency indicated it would comply. 
In early February, the INS announced that it was planning to release certain detained aliens. The INS announcement came under fire from immigration hardliners in Congress and on February 17th, the agency announced it had set aside the planned releases. Elton Gallegly (R-CA) and Lamar Smith (R-TX) led the charge, holding a press conference condemning the INS' initial plans claiming the failure to detain the aliens would pose a threat to communities. 
The American Immigration Lawyers Association in turn offered harsh criticism of Gallegly and Smith:
"By demagaguing the issue and raising fears about public safety, Representatives Smith and Gallegly conveniently sidestep the fact that it was Congress that failed to enact a rational detention policy that would allow the INS to detain the most serious criminal offenders. It was Congress that took away INS' discretion to release to families and communities persons who pose no threat whatsoever-refugees awaiting their asylum hearings and persons with minor, nonviolent, victimless convictions who are awaiting their day in court to have their deportation cases heard. Thus, it is Congress that has disabled the INS by taking away from the agency its ability to detain and remove those persons who pose the greatest risk to our communities.
"Congress, by imposing a wildly irrational mandatory detention order as part of its 1996 immigration law, guaranteed that INS would be set up for failure. The persons who currently fill the vast majority of limited INS detention beds are people with American families and part of American communities. They have every reason to appear in court and seek resolution of their immigration cases. They pose no threat to society, nor do they have any reason to abscond. 
"Congress should cease pointing the finger at a beleaguered agency and take responsibility. Congress should enact a reasonable set of guidelines so that those who do not need to be detained are not incarcerated at the taxpayers expense, and so the public is truly protected." 
The INS' concerns about overcrowding certainly have factual support. Overcrowding at some INS detention facilities in the Eastern Region has become so bad that the agency is preparing to release 1,500 nonviolent criminals in an attempt to ease the situation. Detainees will be chosen for release on a case by case basis.
Under the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, the INS is supposed to detain and deport all immigrants convicted of crimes in the U.S. The Eastern Region has funding and space to detain only 5,434 people, yet there are currently over 6,500 detainees in Eastern Region facilities. The Krome Detention Center in Miami is typical of the overcrowding. Although the facility was designed for 400 detainees, it regularly houses over 500 people. 
Nationwide the number of immigrants in detention is over 16,000, triple the number in detention prior to the 1996 law. Most of these people are awaiting deportation. Some of them are Cubans, who, because of the lack of relations between the U.S. and Cuba, cannot be deported. Under the current law, these people are subject to indefinite detention. As Representative Lincoln Diaz-Balart (R-Florida) said, the 1996 law has failed to consider the "reality of the Cuban situation," and that the current practice of indefinite detention "is a violation of elemental human rights."
The Service had hoped that the proposed release would ease the situation until they can obtain additional funding. Despite the increases in funding for each of the past five years, with a record high of $ 3.95 billion in 1999, the new mandatory detention and deportation of all immigrants who are convicted of criminal offenses enacted by IIRAIRA have put unforeseen pressures on the Service.