OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
The Department of Homeland Security announced Monday that it will begin tracking illegal migrants released into the United States after nearly 50,000 have gone missing, even as record numbers continue pouring across the southwest border from Mexico.
According to sources who spoke to the Washington Examiner, last fall DHS began to permit noncitizens to leave through a process called parole under certain conditions.
Under the program, migrants are still let out of Border Patrol and Customs and Border Protection detention facilities, but their records are then digitally transferred to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the DHS agency that is responsible for keeping track of illegal aliens still within U.S. borders.
Those who have been released were outfitted with ankle monitors or have had an app installed on their phone that allegedly helps ICE keep track of them.
The outlet continued:
The Biden administration implemented the parole policy in an attempt to stop losing track of tens of thousands of migrants as it did by relying on them to check in with the government on their own.
Until early fall, the Biden administration released many from custody with documents known as notices to report — a document telling them to check in with ICE once they reach their destination in the interior of the country. Of 100,000 released and told to report to ICE between mid-March and August, 47,000 failed to check-in.
The administration had resorted to issuing notices to report as a last-ditch effort to more quickly process people in custody as illegal migration at the U.S.-Mexico border spiked. Issuing the documents allowed the Border Patrol to save time by not placing each person in court proceedings to ensure that they would appear before a judge for illegally crossing the border.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection “stopped issuing Notices to Report in November 2021 and has been working with ICE to ensure individuals released at the border are monitored under the Alternatives to Detention program,” a DHS spokesman wrote in an email Friday.
The new system may help mollify Republicans who have been highly critical of the Biden administration’s ‘non-detention’ approach to border security, which they say has only worsened the situation and contributed to more illegal immigration.
“The notices to report created a headache for the DHS because it was unable to track the 47,000 who did not follow up with ICE, and it had no idea where they had gone,” the Washington Examiner’s report continued.
“The DHS stopped issuing notices to report in November, the spokesman said, but data released by CBP indicate this practice stopped in late September after so many people failed to check-in,” the outlet continued. “What’s worse, under the notices to report effort, no one was traceable because ICE had no information about each person. Even though Mayorkas told senators in September that those who fail to self-report to ICE ‘would qualify as an enforcement priority of ours,’ the government now has no way to know where they are living.”
Fox News correspondent Bill Melugin reported this week that DHS encountered nearly 179,000 migrants along the U.S.-Mexico border in December alone, indicating anew that President Biden’s immigration and border security policies are doing next to nothing to stem the tide of illegal immigration.
“BREAKING: CBP finally releases December migrant encounter numbers at Southern border. 178,840. The first 3 months of FY’22 have already seen 518,370 encounters. That’s more than *double* first 3 months of FY’21. (218,306), which was the highest on record at the time,” Melugin noted in a tweet.
BREAKING: CBP finally releases December migrant encounter numbers at Southern border.
178,840.
The first 3 months of FY’22 have already seen 518,370 encounters.
That’s more than *double* first 3 months of FY’21. (218,306), which was the highest on record at the time.@FoxNews pic.twitter.com/YjkRUpyFcl— Bill Melugin (@BillFOXLA) January 24, 2022
“This alone should get Biden impeached,” The Palmieri Report noted.
