A DHS two-fer

It's Sequester Silly Season all over the place. Nobody is cutting the real waste -- everyone is cutting very publicly visible programs designed to annoy the citizens. This is all a PR scam to keep the government growing. Take the Department of Homeland Security for instance -- first from the Miami Herald:

DHS freed over 2,000 immigrants since February
The Homeland Security Department released from its jails more than 2,000 illegal immigrants facing deportation in recent weeks due to looming budget cuts and planned to release 3,000 more during March, The Associated Press has learned.

The newly disclosed figures, cited in internal budget documents reviewed by the AP, are significantly higher than the "few hundred" illegal immigrants the Obama administration acknowledged this week had been released under the budget-savings process.

A bit more:

The White House has said it was not consulted about the releases, and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has acknowledged they occurred in a manner she regrets.

White House spokesman Jay Carney on Wednesday said the government had released "a few hundred" of the roughly 30,000 illegal immigrants held in federal detention pending deportation proceedings. Carney said the immigrants released were "low-risk, noncriminal detainees," and the decision was made by career ICE officials.

But of course, a head rolled -- from The Weekly Standard:

Chief of Staff Out at DHS
In a late Friday afternoon email, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano notified staff that her chief of staff was leaving.

"I extend my deepest appreciation to DHS Chief of Staff Noah Kroloff for his over four years of service to the Department of Homeland Security and his eight years of service to me while I served in Arizona as Governor and Attorney General. Noah has been a trusted advisor, a good friend, and a superb Chief of Staff to this department. Since January 2009, he has been instrumental in establishing and guiding many of the department's key initiatives," wrote Napolitano, according to the email obtained by Mike Allen.

Emphasis mine -- these sorts of actions are always publicized on late Friday afternoon. Our betters in Washington have the media in the tank so by releasing it on late Friday, they can be guaranteed that nothing will be said over the weekend (no real news happens on the weekend) and then on Monday, this story will rate a couple of lines on page 27 if that. Funny though -- a lot of people have taken to watching what comes out of Washington on late Friday -- these are usually the more interesting news items...