Federal authorities are being instructed to quickly release illegal immigrants who are found to have credible fears ahead of the sunset of Title 42, a Trump-era border policy set to end late Thursday, according to an internal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) memo obtained exclusively by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
The Wednesday memo instructs Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) personnel to take such action to clear bed space to accommodate the surge in migrants crossing the southern border when Title 42 ends. President Joe Biden himself acknowledged Tuesday that the southern border is “going to be chaotic for a while.” (RELATED: ‘Will You Call It A Crisis Now?’: Mayorkas Ignores DCNF Reporter’s Border Questions, Walks Away)
Former ICE Chief of Staff Jon Feere told the DCNF that ICE has already underfunded bed space and thus has been unprepared.
“This administration should have been building bed space for the last two years. Instead, they’ve chosen to reduce bed space and are now going to be releasing illegal aliens into the U.S. to temporarily accommodate new illegal aliens arriving into the U.S. But because of the sheer numbers, those individuals will undoubtedly be released soon as well,” Feere, who currently serves as the director of investigations at the Center for Immigration Studies, said.
The memo stated that ERO should begin “increasing available bedspace by rapidly releasing noncitizens who received positive credible fear determinations and focusing detention efforts on noncitizens who are subject to mandatory detention.”
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Title 42 has resulted in the expulsion of more than 2.7 million migrants at the southern border. The Biden administration has planned to mitigate the border surge when the policy ends by creating more legal pathways for migrants, including erecting processing centers in Latin America.
The agency had roughly 25,000 illegal immigrants in custody in mid-April, including more than 4,000 single adults with positive credible fear determinations.
“If this administration wanted to stop illegal immigration, they’d be detaining larger numbers of people for the entirety of their immigration cases,” Feere said.
ICE didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
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