President Obama received praise from two lead Republicans Tuesday after a highly anticipated meeting to talk about pending legislation to fix the nation's immigration laws, but was slammed by Republicans after his administration decided to release hundreds of undocumented immigrants due to pending sequester cuts.
Late on Tuesday, President Obama emerged from a meeting with U.S. Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., to discuss the recent push on immigration reform.
According to the Associated Press, which broke the story at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, both Republican senators told the press that they were convinced of President Obama's commitment to sign a bill into law that would enact comprehensive immigration reform.
"I believe that the president is very committed to comprehensive immigration reform," said Sen. McCain.
"I think we'll have presidential leadership in a very productive way on immigration reform and with that we've got a very good chance of doing it this year," said Sen. Graham after the meeting.
Both Senators are members of the "Gang of Eight," the bipartisan senate group of Republicans and Democrats working together to present a bill to Congress that would address several major questions on immigration, including the creation of a pathway to citizenship for millions of undocumented immigrants living in the nation.
In addition to stronger enforcement of background checks from businesses on their workers, increasing border security is also included in the framework of the bill.
After meeting with Obama on Tuesday, both Sens. McCain and Graham said they felt that the president understood the need to have tougher security measures to guard the nation's borders.
However, the irony of that statement came in its timing, just hours after Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) released several hundred undocumented immigrants from detention facilities due to the impact that the expected $85 billion in automatic spending cuts.
According to the New York Times, the Obama administration is not dropping the deportation cases against the immigrants; on the contrary, the detainees have been released on supervised release and are expected to by back in court while their cases continue.
Immigrants advocates around the country have been reporting that detainees were released in several locations such as Hudson County, N.J.; Polk County, Texas; Broward County, Fla.; and New Orleans; and from centers in Arizona, Alabama, Georgia and New York, the Times adds.
Administration officials did not explain exactly how many detainees were freed or how they selected detainees for release, but they said that those who were freed from detention facilities did not include immigrants who were convicted of serious crimes.
ICE spokesperson Gillian Christensen told The Hill that the agency was still detaining people seen as a serious threat to public safety and those who were released were not granted any kind of temporary citizenship or residency.
However, she added, releasing the other hundreds of detainees cost less than holding them at detention centers. And
"In order to make the best use of our limited detention resources in the current fiscal climate and to manage our detention population under current congressionally mandated levels, ICE has directed field offices to review the detained population to ensure it is in line with available funding," said Christensen.
ICE was one of several agencies that are facing across-the-board sequester budget cuts that will automatically go into effect Friday if Congress and President Obama are unable to come up with a budget deal.
Still, the decision to release those immigrants drew fire from GOP members such as House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va., who said the move undermined the bipartisan efforts to come together on the immigration issue.
"It's abhorrent that President Obama is releasing criminals into our communities to promote his political agenda on sequestration," said Goodlatte, who will play a key role in immigration as Judiciary's chairman. "By releasing criminal immigrants onto the streets, the administration is needlessly endangering American lives.
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