As Illegals Flood the Border, Biden Admin Brings Back Controversial 'Catch and Release' Policy
President Joe Biden has, with another stroke of a pen, further destabilized the situation at America’s southern border, this time by reimplementing the Obama administration-era “catch and release” policy for illegal immigrants.
Former President Donald Trump officially ended the policy of broadly treating those who cross the border illegally as asylum seekers in 2019. Then-Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Kevin K. McAleenan stated in September 2019 that DHS and Customs and Border Protection would put Trump’s plan into action.
“With some humanitarian and medical exceptions, DHS will no longer be releasing family units from Border Patrol Stations into the interior,” said McAleenan in a statement. “This means that for family units, the largest demographic by volume arriving at the border this year, the court-mandated practice of catch and release, due to the inability of DHS to complete immigration proceedings with families detained together in custody, will have been mitigated.”
“This is a vital step in restoring the rule of law and integrity to our immigration system,” McAleenan concluded.
Ending such a policy, while also making coming to the country illegally less attractive through other means, seemed to work to a large degree. Trump pressured the Mexican government to do something about vast caravans of migrants from South and Central America, while construction crews worked day and night to erect a permanent barrier — the Trump wall.
All of those new and common-sense approaches to enforcing the country’s immigration laws are now Trump era relics, and those whose job it is to protect American sovereignty are feeling the strains of Democratic leadership.
With the return of catch and release, per the Biden executive order, illegal border crossers will again be permitted to stay in the country while they wait for their immigration cases to be resolved in court.
Remember when Trump and Biden sparred about all of this during the second presidential debate in October of last year?
“Who built the cages, Joe?” Trump famously asked Biden about the detention centers for children abandoned by coyotes or other adults constructed under Biden and former President Barack Obama’s administration. Those “cages” are presumably about to have their capacity tested.
But that’s in addition to the overall quagmire just a few weeks of Biden’s leadership has made of things on the border.
Fox News spoke to Customs and Border Protection about the return of the disastrous catch and release policy.
“CBP said three factors led to the decision to release illegal immigrant families: an increase of migrant traffic, specifically families from Central America and unaccompanied children; Mexico’s refusal to accept additional families with children under age 12 in areas where migrants camps grow increasingly large, overwhelming the shelter and services; and COVID-19, which has severely reduced Border Patrol detention and transport capacity,” the outlet reported.
Who didn’t see all this coming?
Biden’s inauguration sent waves of migrants northward in the midst of a pandemic, and now those who have crossed the border are being handled with kid gloves. There doesn’t appear to be anything coming down the pipeline to stop the influx of migrants, either.
The illegal immigration deterrents Trump created are gone, and we’re back where we were four years ago. Guess what else is back? More cages for kids!
Fox News reported a facility in Carizzo Springs, Texas, will add 700 beds for unaccompanied children, while another one in Donna, Texas, will add 500 more beds. Lone Star State officials are also struggling to sufficiently test new arrivals for COVID before they’re given court dates for their respective immigration cases and put on buses headed for cities across the country.
Will they show up for court, or simply take up illegal residence in a town near you? That much hasn’t been determined. But the buses are reportedly full. Writing for the Center for Immigration Studies, Todd Bensman shared some insight into the atmosphere in the Rio Grande Valley of southern Texas.
“U.S. Border Patrol and ICE are allowing hundreds of Haitians and other migrant nationalities who cross in the Del Rio region to avoid detention or quick return to Mexico; instead they are given Notices to Appear in immigration court at some point in the future and allowed to board Greyhound buses for other parts of the United States, according to federal sources and the head of a migrant-assistance agency helping the migrants,” Bensman wrote.
One federal official told Bensman, “They’re filling bus after bus after bus.”
After four years of the establishment media and the Democrats gnashing their teeth about “kids in cages,” those cages are getting larger as more unaccompanied minors are apparently discarded after whoever brought them over gets across the border safely. Untold people have now crossed into the country, and more are coming.
The situation, specifically with regard to the additions of beds for minors, presumably won’t get any better — and why should it?
Biden has removed every deterrent for crossing into the country illegally, and for dragging along children while doing so. Migrants are back to taking advantage of the oh-so compassionate Democrats and the American people.
But what’s the difference? Biden made cages great again!
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