According to reporting by the Washington Examiner, over 283,000 illegal aliens have been released into the United States interior after being caught crossing the border so far this year. The number comes from unreleased Border Patrol data shared with The Examiner by Democratic Representative Henry Cuellar.
For context, the 283,000 tally means that one in six illegal aliens caught crossing the southern border were released directly by Border Patrol into the nation's interior between October 1, 2020, and September 30, 2021.
These 283,000 aliens are separate from the hundreds of thousands of other migrants released by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Refugee Resettlement and the Department of Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). For example, HHS had released over 120,000 alien "minors" in fiscal year 2021
Rep. Cuellar, whose district butts up against the southern border, stated:
The Mexican president and the Guatemalan president are saying that the [Biden] administration has given the impression of open borders. You can imagine what's the word on the street over there, and that's why we keep getting people coming in.
In fact, according to the data shared by Congressman Cuellar, Border Patrol is so overwhelmed with the number of illegal aliens that approximately 95,000 aliens (of the 283k) were released without legal documentation ordering them to appear before an immigration judge.
Instead, these 95,000 aliens were issued "Notices to Report," which urges the migrants to check in at a local ICE office once they reach their final destination within the country. In other words, the Federal government is relying on the illegal aliens to hold themselves accountable for illegally entering the country - the government is also keeping no record of these aliens in the immigration court system to make sure they comply.
Before, alien families and single alien adults apprehended after crossing the border would be taken to BP stations and processed; alien families would then be turned over to ICE who would hold them for a maximum of 20 days. If the system worked as intended - these families would see an immigration judge who would adjudicate their asylum claims; however, excessive backlogs in the courts meant that many of these aliens were released, but they were always issued Notices to Appear and tracked by the government.
Now - alien families and single alien adults, who the Biden administration still maintains are being turned away at the border, are being released directly by the Border Patrol instead of processed, released, and tracked by ICE. In addition, ICE is also being forced to release thousands of criminal aliens under the Biden Administration's new "enforcement priorities."
The Examiner reports one of the causes for these disastrous changes:
A change in Mexican state laws a year ago blocked non-Mexican families with children who are 7 years of age and older from being returned to Mexico on the basis that shelters cannot accommodate the returns. In response, Border Patrol was unable to immediately expel all families and adults at the border, as it had been doing since March 2020.
For the entire story, please visit the Washington Examiner.
