director morton confirmed that the agency released 2,228 detainees from detention. 1,599 were noncriminals. however, mr. morton did not provide a break down of the noncriminals. we do not know how many were charged of crimes or not yet convicted or are criminal gang members. additionally, mr. morton did not think any of the individuals released were national security concerns. d.h.s. claimed that all released illegal immigrants are low priorities and have not committed with serious crimes. this is inconsistent that morton has detained "the worst of the worst illegal immigrants in their ability to detain, deport that the agency encounters." your decisions to release the immigrants unnecessarily put the public at risk. the question remain, are these individuals being released based on legitimate concerns or because sequestration gave the obama administration a political reason to release deportable aliens. surely other budgetary considerations could have come first such as cutting conferences or travel. releasing illegal immigrants gives them little incentive to report themselves. many will become fugitives. further more, the director has indicated that i.c.e. has had to re-apprehend four out of the 10 of the illegal immigrant for more severe crimes. to make matters worse, many of these individuals released lack the money, family, support, and the ability to get a job. not just because they are present in violation of the law but because they have a criminal record. this is a recipe for disaster that is irresponsible and unjustified. to make matters worse, many of these individuals lack the money, family, support and the ability to get a job, not just because they are present in violation of the law, but because they have a right -- a criminal record ultimately, the nonsensical action demonstrates the inability and a lack of desire on behalf of the administration to enforce the law, even against illegal immigrants convicted of serious crimes. we learned that 72% of the people released an okra record at all. another 21% had convictions for one or two misdemeanors only. unless to rector martin, who we welcome here today, tells us something different, this means that 93% of the people released by ice were not criminals or low, low level offenders. second, the title of the as for whether this was motivated by policy or politics, from my investigations, i don't believe it was either. i don't believe it was policy because we have no reason to think that someone sat down and decided to release thousands of detainees without reason. remember, this agency, over the past five years has consistently set deportation and it pension records. i also don't believe this is about politics and the president top legislative irony is -- legislative priority is immigration reform. i share the president's goal. the american people share the president's goal. and i know a growing majority of members of congress support that goal. this discussion does not advance that goal. so i don't see how it can be motivated by politics. so why did the agency release more than 2000 people from custody in february? based on what we've learned, it seems that it was motivated by overzealous use of detention in late 2012 combined with poor communication between the people in charge of ice possible budget and the people in charge -- ice's budget and the people in charge. they did attain an of 34,000 people per day over a fiscal year. that comes out at a daily cost of about $122 per bed. but from october through december when he 12, -- december 2012, ice detained well over 35,000 people per day. they nearly hit 37,000 detainees on some days. not only did this mean ice was paying more for detention beds, but was paying more over time, more fuel costs for additional transportation and more of everything else required for detention. the secondary core cost brought the real cost of the attention closer to $164 per person per day and explains why ice was maybe $100 million in the red. ice tried to put the brakes on all of that, spending limits, chief financial officer figured out that the agency was burning through its money faster than its budget would allow terri in -- allow. in early january, the agency was on pace to run out of money for custody operations by march 9. more than 18 days before the continuing resolution expired on march 27. ice seems to have had no choice but to release some detainees bring its spending in check. and so i would like to put this in the record that we need to really move with great care in terms of the assertions that are made in this misleading title. i appreciate the chairman allow me to make this statement. >> without objection, the remainder of his statement in the opening statements of all the members will be made part of the record. rex mr. chairman, i would -- >> mr. chairman, i would ask unanimous consent that the order of the office of the president, the executive order january 14 be placed in the record next to it. >> without objection, it will be placed in the record. we welcome our only witness today, director john morton of the u.s. immigration and customs enforcement. first, director morton, if you will please rise and be sworn in. do you swear that the testimony you are about to give shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth so help you god? >> i do. >> let the record show that the witness entered in the affirmative. john morton is director of immigration and customs enforcement that homeland security. it is the second-largest avidity -- investigative interest in the -- it is the second-largest investigative agency in the federal government. prior to director 's appointment, he spent 15 years in the department of justice. director morton received a law degree from the virginia school of law. you're welcome to proceed with your testimony. >> good afternoon. while much has been made of ice's recent reduction in levels, and the truth is it was in direct result in attempts to stay within its budget. and now the reality of sequester. we don't have a traditional appropriation for 2013. ice is funded through continuing appropriation at fy 12 levels through next wednesday, march 27 and we do not yet know what congress will provide ice for the remaining six months of the fiscal year. additionally, as of march 1, we are living under a sequester, a reduction just shy of $300 million in while the expiring cr provides ice 34,000 meds, sequestration has reduced those same funds by percent. despite these challenges, ice continues to produce impressive enforcement results. during the first five months of the six-month cr, the portion without sequestration, we were solidly on pace to remain -- to maintain ready for thousand beds. on the last full week of that, our average annual daily population was 23,925 beds. mr. chairman, this is the highest level of the tension ice has ever maintained over the -- of detention ice has ever maintained. this comes on the heels of maintaining 34,260 beds over last fiscal year and having removed 400-9000 illegal immigrants. again, the highest levels in categories we have ever achieved. at times, during this fiscal year, we maintained over 34,000 beds to impart to increase support given the border patrol wrong -- order patrol along the southwest border. we obviously could not maintain such highs over the year. so we had to temporarily lower our detention to levels before -- below 34,000 to ensure that we remain in within budget. first, two of the funds were used to maintain detention space did not reach the funds expected. second, four months into the fiscal year, january 10, 2013, we were maintaining an average in excess of 630 beds come over 34,000. had we continued to operate at this level, we would have had a shortfall of $120 million. nevery, our expenses and time exceeded our cr budget i $16 million. we can usually face these issues during the balance of the fiscal year. this year, we had only six months of known funding. therefore, it was decided to temporarily reduce our detention levels at the end of the cr to stay in budget. locally, -- local officers were regulated to stick to those. from february 9 through march 1, on average, we released over 700 aliens a week. contrary to some reports, those released for budget reasons did not include thousands of criminals who posed a significant risk to public safety. indeed, 70% of those released had no criminal record at all. the remaining 30% were either misdemeanors or other criminals whose art conviction did not pose a violent threat to public safety. during this time, most of our field offices released on a rich fewer than his team detainees each week. in total, we released 2228 aliens over a three-week. in february bringing the average to 33,925. 99.80% of 34,000. of the 2228 individuals released, 629 had a past criminal conviction. 460 were level three offenders, our lowest classification. 160 were level two offenders, armenian classification. only nine were level -- our median patient. only nine were up 11. -- upper level. as the chairman has already noted, there are only four level one offenders on release. in short, there are no mass releases of dangerous criminals underway or any plan for the future. just efforts to live within our budget. we'll continue to do our level best over the remaining six months of the year to maintain strong detention levels subject to the requirements of the sequester and whatever funding congress provides us at the end of the month. thank you. >> thank you, inspector morden -- inspector martin. i will recognize myself to begin the questioning. of the more than 2002 hundred detainees that have been released so far, several hundred are criminal aliens who have been convicted of crimes such as theft, fraud and other crimes perpetrated on people in our society. was the decision to release detained illegal and criminal a live -- criminal aliens made by you? >> it was a decision made by the career officials in the agency. in particular, mr. made and our chief financial officers. i support their decision completely and to the extent your question ask, wasn't made by anybody outside of the agency, the answer is a categorical no. >> did you coordinate with any officials at dhs headquarters in making the decision to release this to eventually dangerous illegal immigrants. >> none whatsoever. >> do you have any authority to act unilaterally to release detained illegal aliens? >> first of all, the answer is yes. the authority by statute rests with me and the officers at the agency. in fact, other than the secretary, we are the only individuals in the -- in the department with that authority. >> you're saying the decision to release 2200 people for this purpose, whatever the purpose may have been, whether to save money or for other reasons, had no communications with the higher departments to which ice, as an agency, that you report. >> that is correct. these decisions were made inside the agency for budgetary reasons. >> let me have this right here. i have in front of me a memorandum dated december 8, 2010, that you submitted to secretary napolitano under the subject martyr "expanding expedited removal of felons unlawfully in the united states," where you set forth the purpose of making that request the background for making the request, your discussion about the request. and at the bottom, your recommendation, below which is a signature line for the approval of the secretary. is that standard procedure for you and others in agencies within the department of homeland security for making decisions regarding changes in policy at the department? >> that was a recommendation to the secretary about possible ways to streamline removal efforts. that one had to do with expedited removal. so that was a specific -- >> i understand. but why would the decision in that case have required you to make a request of the secretary and the decision here to release onto our streets as opposed to the expedited removal and deportation 2200 plus people. we have seen documents that suggest the plan was to really several thousand more onto our streets without any approval from secretary napolitano. >> the regulatory authority for expedited removal is set for this secretary, not by the agency. unlike attention releases, ice has exclusive detention authority here to >> if you want to increase the deportation of people outside the country and expedite that, you have to seek the approval of the secretary. but if you want to release the same people back onto the streets of the united states where they can commit more crime, you do not have to seek the secretaries of rule for purpose. >> no, that's not what i'm saying. if i wish to change the rules for expedited removal, i have to go to the secretary with that proposal. that authority does not rest exclusively with the agency. that was about a very specific statutory and regulatory power that is not held exclusively by ice. ice was under -- as a result, all the other counts in nice carry a balance of 200 $40 million for the year and a hundred 20 million for the past six months. additionally, your cfo indicated that ice carried forward $120 million in user fee balances. can you tell us why ice never submitted a reprogramming request to appropriations which can be handled at the committee level rather than releasing detained illegal immigrants. isn't it true that both ice and dhs could you shoot reprogramming requests to cover the costs of these detainees? releasingrequest requirements. we did not in this instance. i am trying to live within the appropriations that congress gives us. our single largest appropriation is for custody operations. and we were trying to live within our budget, recognizing that we had to go the full year. we did not have a full-year appropriation. we only had six months. sequester was coming. and we played it very tight to the best -- hi to the vest other than in custody operations, where it was important enough and we operated at a level above what we were approached rated four in the fiscal year. and i did not want to rob peter to pay paul. my view is that we need to maintain the operations of the agency. i don't want to for low people. and i need to make rational judgments across the ppa's that we are given by the appropriations committee. >> the appropriations committee is used to dealing with access expenditures -- with excess spencers. i'm glad to see that you did dip into surplus funds and other operations in the department rather than releasing criminal aliens onto our streets. toill ask unanimous consent enter the following document into the record during weeks that ice to respond to this request for information. a light -- a letter stating that, on february 20 third, 20 13, immigration and customs enforcement processed and released 270 illegal immigrants from the ice you a facility in arizona on this date alone. of the 207, a total of 48 had been charged or convicted with either manslaughter, child molestation, aggravated assault for my weapons defenses, forgery, drug offenses or other serious crimes. and third coming memo from director morten morten to secretary upon apollo -- secretary napolitano. without objection, those will be made part of the record. my time is expired. i now recognize the gentleman from michigan, mr. conyers. rex thank you, mr. chairman -- >> thank you, mr. chairman. the agency, director orton, has been accused of releasing detainees to score political points in advance of sick stray shin. -- of sequestration. but a son what we learned in the last week, it looks more like ice was forced to tighten its belt beginning in january because it had been spending excessively throughout the fall to detain thousands of people more per day than its budget would allow. can you put some further explanation on to this assertion? >> yes, mr. conyers. let me start out by setting the context. there are about 350,000 people in immigration proceedings at any given time. the vast majority of those people are not detained. and that is by statutory design. that is congressional design. congress has directed the agency to detain certain individuals by mandate. those cases are known as mandatory detention. there are certain criminals and certain non-criminals that we must attain. and the rest of the system is designed for consideration of release on conditions. the agency has that power and is also overseen by immigration judges them a predetermined the government decisions initial decisions at ice. so the idea that simply because a person is in the country unlawfully or they have a criminal conviction, that the rule is that you are detained is not true. in fact, the use of the tension is the exception to the rule given the number of people that are in proceedings. there are 350,000 people at any given time. we have resources on the very best of days for about 34,000 to 35,000 people. many of those people are not even in formal immigration proceedings. so we have to manage our budget and our levels go up and down. sometimes we are above 34,000. sometimes we are below and sometimes we don't have enough space to take a particular person into proceedings so we place them on an alternative detention. a bracelet, a monitor for mother have two call-in, they are on order of supervision, on bond, 150,000 people are on bonds right now in immigration proceedings. some have criminal convictions and some of them don't. it is by statute. that is by congressional design. nots exactly like become just a system. in fact, the detention system for immigration actually has mandates that you don't see in the criminal justice system. >> that is a very thorough explanation that i find quite reassuring. you have been doing an outstanding job as director for how long now? >> i am about to come to the end of my fourth year. i will be the longest serving head of the agency that ice has ever had. >> that's great. can you explain how, during the months of our sober, november and december, ice was detaining 2000 or 3000 more people on any given day than he could afford through its budgetary circumstances to detain? >> yes, sir. at the end of last year, we were operating a very high operational tempo. in large part, one of the things i have tried to do is provide the border patrol much greater detentions work. for example, we are detaining 7000y given day 6000 to people in texas for the border patrol. we are then formally removing them through the ice powers instead of simply voluntary returns. that meant that come at the end of the fiscal year, we were operating at quite a high level of attention, 36,000 during if we had had full-year funding, could have adjusted over time to make sure that we ended the at 34,000 using whatever funds that we had here in this particular year, we had a cr and, two to three months into that cr, it was clear that we would not have a good sense of what the funding would be for the remainder of the year and that sequester might in fact be a reality for us. said, had to do, as you am belt-tightening. everybody remained in proceedings. everyone is on some form of supervision. our intent is still to remove them from the united states. we are reviewing all of the cases continually. if we made a mistake or there are new circumstances that suggest that somebody should come back into our custody, they will. and as the chairman has artie noted, we have made a handful of decisions already to return people to our custody, both level one and level two offenders. >> thank you very much during i have been permitted one quick question as my time is expired. but we are only a few days away from the end of the cr. and we are more than two weeks into the sequestration. can you tell us any more about your budgetary outlook today? ask i cannot. i hope that congress passes a budget for rice by march 27. -- four ice by march 27. i understand where the c