One of the more egregious parts of former President Joe Biden’s lax enforcement of immigration laws was his so-called “catch and release” policy, in which apprehended illegal aliens were released into the nation’s interior while they waited months or even years for a hearing on their often bogus asylum claims.
That policy has now been formally reversed and ended under the Trump administration, such that most migrants caught in the country illegally will now be detained until they receive a hearing and/or are likely deported, Breitbart reported.
The substantial policy change, part of President Donald Trump’s broader effort to curb illegal immigration and secure the nation’s borders, was made possible by a significant funding increase for immigration-related federal agencies that will allow for up to 100,000 illegal migrants to be held in custody on any given day.
Trump ordered termination of “catch-and-release” policy
On the first day of President Trump’s second term, he issued an executive order on “Securing Our Borders” that made halting illegal immigration a top priority of his administration.
Included among the several provisions of that order was one that stated the Homeland Security Secretary “shall, consistent with applicable law, issue new policy guidance or propose regulations regarding the appropriate and consistent use of lawful detention authority under the INA, including the termination of the practice commonly known as ‘catch-and-release,’ whereby illegal aliens are routinely released into the United States shortly after their apprehension for violations of immigration law.”
Unfortunately, at the time of Trump’s order, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement lacked the detention space, funding, and manpower to make good on that assignment, though the process of winding down the “catch-and-release” policy was begun in earnest.
Now six months later, however, and after the passage of a massive spending bill focused on the president’s agenda, ICE is set with tens of billions of dollars to build more detention facilities and hire more agents over the next few years, such that they will soon be capable of doubling the number of illegal migrants they can detain on a daily basis from around 50,000 to upwards of 100,000.
“Catch-and-release” now officially ended
The news of the end of the “catch-and-release” policy was begrudgingly shared by The Washington Post, which reported on a recent memo it obtained from Ice Acting Director Todd Lyons that informed all ICE agents that, barring a few limited exceptions, all apprehended illegal migrants should be detained “for the duration of their removal proceedings.”
Beginning under the Obama administration and continuing through under former President Biden, the vast majority of illegal migrants apprehended by immigration authorities were simply given a court date, often months or years down the road, and subsequently released into the U.S. to await that hearing, which they may or may not show up for.
Yet, according to Lyons, DHS and the Justice Department “revisited its legal position on detention and release authorities” and determined that, per existing laws and aside from limited case-by-case parole exceptions, apprehended illegal migrants “may not be released from ICE custody” until they are deported or set free by a judge following a bond hearing.
New detention policy already working
The Post noted that the new detention policy has had an immediate effect, according to pro-migrant organizations like the American Immigration Lawyers Association, which lamented that it was hearing reports from members across the country that ICE officials and immigration courts were now routinely denying bond requests and keeping detained migrants in custody.
“This is their way of putting in place nationwide a method of detaining even more people,” AILA senior director of government relations Greg Chen said of ICE. “It’s requiring the detention of far more people without any real review of their individual circumstances.”
Per an ICE statement, though, all the new policy does is “closes a loophole” in existing laws that the prior administration left open to be exploited by millions of illegal migrants, and that the agency was merely enforcing the “law as it was actually written to keep America safe.”
“Detention is absolutely the best way to approach this, if you can do it. It costs a lot of money, obviously,” Mark Krikorian, executive director of the pro-enforcement Center for Immigration Studies, told the Post. “You’re pretty much guaranteed to be able to remove the person, if there’s a negative finding, if he’s in detention,” rather than having to track down somebody previously released untracked into the nation’s interior.
The post ICE formally ends Biden-era ‘catch-and-release’ policy for illegal migrants appeared first on Conservative Institute.
Click this link for the original source of this article.
Author: Ben Marquis
This content is courtesy of, and owned and copyrighted by, https://conservativeinstitute.org and its author. This content is made available by use of the public RSS feed offered by the host site and is used for educational purposes only. If you are the author or represent the host site and would like this content removed now and in the future, please contact USSANews.com using the email address in the Contact page found in the website menu.