Here's today's scariest, most disturbing story:

WASHINGTON — Despite increased anti-terror demands, immigration inspectors guarding the nation's borders are laboring under an internal budget crisis that has forced freezes on overtime pay and new hiring — as well as the release of hundreds of illegal immigrants from detention centers.

The funding crisis, which some lawmakers blame on possible financial mismanagement at the Department of Homeland Security, is expected to last at least through the fall...

...detention facilities in some regions have been asked to cut their populations of detained illegal immigrants by as much as 50 percent to save money, according to internal DHS memos obtained by WorldNetDaily. More than 1,600 detainees are in the process of being released inside the U.S. Hundreds more are expected to follow before the election...

Some alarmed members of Congress aren't fully buying [DHS's explanation of problems related to the INS-Customs merger], however.

For example, U.S. Rep. Jim Turner, ranking member of the House Committee on Homeland Security, last month asked the DHS inspector general to conduct an audit of the financial management of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, or CBP. The Texas Democrat says the committee has received "numerous reports" of financial problems at the new DHS bureau, possibly resulting from mismanagement.

...officials say DHS decided to freeze hiring at two of its bureaus: CBP and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, which is responsible for detaining and deporting illegal immigrants...

...inspections supervisors at major airports say they are under pressure to cut back on overtime staffing, especially for secondary inspections...

Even so, veteran immigration inspectors say morale has sunk to new lows since the merger, which they describe more as a "hostile takeover" by U.S. Customs management...

"Washington views the inspector in the field as the enemy," said a supervisor at another major airport, "and is trying hard to get rid of as many older inspectors as possible..."

Money is so tight, in fact, that some major airports have even begun cutting back on supplies used at inspections booths, such as copying paper, pens and latex gloves, officials say...

Worse, DHS is planning to release thousands of jailed illegal immigrants to save money. It spends about $550 million a year to hold the estimated 24,000 detainees around the country.

And headquarters is discouraging border patrol officers from taking new aliens into custody, according to both officials and internal documents.

"They don't want to capture anybody because they're running out of [jail] space and they don't have the money to hold them," a CBP official said.

An internal CBP memo circulated in the Midwest region reveals that the Detention and Removal division, or D&R, of ICE has been told to cut jail populations in half.

"D&R is feeling the budget crunch, too," said CBP official Richard J. Roster in a recent staff memo. "D&R has been told to cut back lock-up numbers by 50 percent."

"For example, down Kansas City way, they raided a chicken feeding farm and picked up 24 aliens. This will have to stop!" he said in his June 21 memo obtained by WND...

Victor Cerda, acting director of detention and removal operations at ICE, called the administration's new plan to release thousands of jailed illegal immigrants to home confinement "a compassionate alternative..."