WASHINGTON — The Obama administration Tuesday unveiled preparations to permit additional nonviolent illegal immigrants to await deportation proceedings wearing ankle bracelets outside prison walls rather than locked up in costly jail cells.
Federal officials said reducing the number of imprisoned immigrants without criminal records would save money, keep families together and ease complaints about unnecessarily harsh prison conditions raised by some immigrant advocacy organizations.
“This is a system that encompasses many different types of detainees, not all of whom need to be held in prison-like circumstances or jail-like circumstances,” said Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano.
High security “not only may be unnecessary but more expensive than necessary,” Napolitano added.
The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency detains nearly 400,000 foreign nationals on suspected immigration violations each year at a cost of $2.4 billion.
On a typical day, about 31,075 immigrants are held at more than 300 federal, state, local and private prisons across the country.
The agency simultaneously tracks another 19,169 immigrants released into “alternative to detention” programs that include telephonic reporting, global positioning tracking using devices such as ankle bracelets, curfews, unannounced home visits and employment verification.
Of the foreign nationals held on a typical day, the majority were deemed “low custody — or having a low propensity for violence,” said an investigative report used as the basis for the planned changes.
Most detainees are held for about 30 days before their immigration status is adjudicated and they face possible deportation.
The Obama administration will submit to Congress by mid-December a “nationwide implementation plan” to expand the number of immigrants under federal supervision while awaiting deportation, Napolitano and ICE chief John Morton said at a news conference.
Neither official detailed the size of the proposed expansion.
Prison costs the federal government about $100 a day for each detainee compared with $14 a day for community-based supervision, Napolitano said.
