As if the unrelenting crisis at the border wasn’t already bad enough, new data released by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has revealed that over 49,000 of the 344,000 illegal aliens currently participating in the agency’s “Alternatives to Detention” program are not being tracked by any electronic monitoring.
“Coupled with its extremely weak enforcement of the nation’s immigration laws, the Biden administration’s mismanagement of the Alternatives to Detention program has only compounded the crisis on our southern border,” said Rodney Scott, the Texas Public Policy Foundation’s Senior Distinguished Fellow for Border Security and retired Chief of the United States Border Patrol.
Scott pointed out that the current administration’s preference for the “catch and release” Alternatives to Detention program as opposed to mandatory detention of aliens who enter the United States illegally serves as a magnet that is resulting in higher and higher numbers of encounters of illegal aliens at the border. “Detention is the only way to ensure due process and is a proven deterrent to illegal immigration and fraudulent asylum schemes , while a catch and release program that is failing to track large numbers of those that it releases is symptomatic of the lawlessness that is countenanced by the current administration,” Scott concluded.