The Obama administration has reinstated the catch and release policy forcing Border Patrol to release any illegal aliens “claiming” to have been in the country since January 2014, without ordering them to appear at a deportation hearing. This essentially ignores our immigration laws and grants illegal aliens the right to remain in the country.
The new policy is in response to the fact that around half of the illegal aliens apprehended during the 2014 border surge never showed up to their deportation court hearing as they were ordered.
"The willful failure to show up for court appearances by persons that were arrested and released by the Border Patrol has become an extreme embarrassment for the Department of Homeland Security. It has been so embarrassing that DHS and the U.S. attorney's office has come up with a new policy," Brandon Judd, President of the National Border Patrol Council, testified before the House immigration subcommittee yesterday.
According to a report by the Migration Policy Institute only about one in six minors actually show up for their court hearings. To deal with this “embarrassment” the administration decided to stop issuing a “notice to appear” in front of an immigration judge.
Under the new policy it says that an illegal alien only has to “claim” that they have been in the county since January 2014, no proof of their claim is required. Once the illegal alien is released there is no way to track where they go.
This catch and release policy has encouraged thousands of illegal aliens to continue to surge across the border, including violent gang members. Jessica M. Vaughn, Policy Director for the Center for Immigration Studies, also testified before the subcommittee saying, “violent transnational gangs such as MS-13 have taken full advantage of the Obama administration's welcome mat to swell their ranks here, contributing to a noticeable spike in gang violence in certain localities – with tragic results."
She referenced the Boston arrests of 56 MS-13 gang members who arrived in the 2014 border surge and have been linked to a number of teen murders as an effort to gain full membership into the gang.
"Immigration laws today appear to be mere suggestions. There are little or no consequences for breaking the laws and that fact is well known in other countries. If government agencies like DHS or CBP are allowed to bypass Congress by legislating through policy, we might as well abolish our immigration laws altogether," Judd concluded.
You can read more on this story at The Washington Examiner.
