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 Obama administration said Friday that it will begin charging $465 this month for temporary work permits for many young illegal immigrants as it laid out details of one its signature new policies on immigration.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection needs to do a better job of justifying its plans for $1.5 billion border surveillance project at the Arizona-Mexico border, according to a government report released Friday.

The Department of Defense is extending the deployment of 1,200 National Guard troops in Arizona and other states that border Mexico for an additional 90 days.

Mexican children illegally crossing the border alone remain vulnerable to drug cartels, gangs and other dangers because a 2-year-old law designed to protect them is not being executed well, advocates from the U.S. and Mexico said in a report released Wednesday.

The Obama administration on Friday ended a high-tech southern border fence scheme that cost taxpayers nearly $1 billion but did little to improve security. Congress ordered the high-tech fence in 2006 amid a clamor over the porous border, but the project yielded only 53 miles of protection.

Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard plans to tell Congress what it should do to stop smuggling of illegal immigrants.

The Homeland Security Department will use unmanned surveillance aircraft and other technological upgrades in its ongoing effort to protect the southern border of the United States.