Report: Border Patrol Releasing Illegal Border Crossers Into US Without Even Giving Them a Court Date
Illegal immigrants detained in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas are now being released into communities without even being ordered to appear in court to hear their asylum claims, according to new reports.
Fox News reported Sunday that the new policy is being put in place to move illegal immigrants other than unaccompanied children out of overwhelmed Border Patrol facilities.
Axios reported that 150 migrants were set loose Saturday under the new policy.
When the Biden administration took office in January and scrapped the Trump administration’s border policies — including the Migrant Protection Protocols requiring immigrants to remain in Mexico while their asylum claims were pending — it restored the Obama-era practice of allowing illegal immigrants into the U.S. with a notice to appear in court.
Many who were supposed to appear never did; the Center for Immigration Studies estimated that figure at 40 percent.
But even that has now been abandoned, according to the Fox News report, which said the “unprecedented move places the responsibility of seeking an asylum hearing on the migrants through Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) or legal assistance.”
Fox News said the new policy was confirmed by multiple Border Patrol agents, who said the main factor in scrapping the process was to rid agents of the time needed to complete the paperwork for a hearing.
A senior official with Customs and Border Protection told Fox News on Saturday that the new policy was developed because the situation had “become so dire that [Border Patrol] has no choice but to release people nearly immediately after apprehension because there is no space to hold people even to do necessary NTA paperwork.”
Fox News said illegal immigrants are “registered into the system with biometrical data taken and largely released into the public — in one instance — at a bus station in McAllen, TX.”
A Department of Homeland Security statement to Axios said, “In some cases, families are placed in removal proceedings further along in the release process rather than while they are at the border patrol station.”
“All families, however, are screened at the border patrol station, including the collection of biographical and biometric information and criminal and national security records checks,” the statement said.
The guidance given to Border Patrol agents said coronavirus tests should be administered “whenever possible,” according to Axios.
Former ICE acting Director Tom Homan denounced the Biden administration’s border policies Sunday in an interview with host Mark Levin on”Life, Liberty & Levin.”
“The Biden administration is still trying to blame President Trump for what’s going on the border right now. They’re ignoring the fact that — I don’t care if you love President Trump or hate him — you cannot deny the fact that he gave us the most secure border in my career, which is almost 35 years,” he told the Fox News host.
Homan charged that “Joe Biden has sold out this country to the progressive left to win an election.”
He said migrants are being released “as soon as they can, within three days. ICE has been decapitated. They lost 90 percent of their authority. They’re not executing judges’ orders, and we keep throwing out more enticements.”
“This isn’t incompetence. This is by design. This is an open borders agenda that we all knew was coming,” Homan said.
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