ICE has drafted plans to release thousands of immigrants and slash its capacity to hold detainees after the failure of a Senate border bill that would have erased a $700 million budget shortfall, according to four officials at ICE and the Department of Homeland Security. Via the Washington Post:

The bipartisan border bill that Republican lawmakers opposed last week would have provided $6 billion in supplemental funding for ICE enforcement operations. The bill’s demise has led ICE officials to begin circulating an internal proposal to save money by releasing thousands of detainees and cutting detention levels from 38,000 beds to 22,000 — the opposite of the enforcement increases Republicans say they want.

The budget crunch and the proposal also present a difficult scenario for the Biden administration heading into the spring, when illegal crossings at the southern border are expected to spike again. On Tuesday, House Republicans voted to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas over his border record, and immigration remains President Biden’s worst-rated issue in polls.

Former president Donald Trump, the 2024 Republican front-runner in the presidential campaign, boasted of his role in influencing lawmakers to block the border bill, which he said would have benefited Biden politically.

DHS could try to cover the funding gap at ICE by reprogramming money from the Coast Guard, the Transportation Security Administration or other agencies within the department. But such moves are contentious, and ICE officials say the $700 million deficit is the largest projected shortfall the agency has faced in recent memory.

Some of the proposed cost savings would occur through deportations — but much of it would have to happen through the mass release of detainees, said the ICE officials.