According to a federal pilot program, almost 9 in 10 illegal immigrants who’ve been recently released in the interior of the country while they wait for their asylum hearings haven’t appeared at their court dates.
For about six months now, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has expanded its catch and release program of illegal immigrants and border jumpers, especially among those showing up at the southern border with children.
Since last December, the DHS has released no less than 190,500 illegal immigrants and border crossers into the interior of the country – a truly astounding figure.
Earlier this month, Kevin McAleenan, the current DHS Secretary, told Congress that of those immigrants are given work permits which allow them to take U.S. jobs while they wait for their asylum hearing.
Also earlier this month, while giving Congressional testimony, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials stated that the agency had recently carried out a pilot program with the Department of Justice (DOG) which examined just how many recently arrived illegal immigrants would actually appear at their asylum hearings after being released into the interior of the country.
The results were dismal.
An official from ICE told congressmen that approximately 87 percent of illegal immigrants – or nearly 9-in-10 – of those foreign nationals recently released into the country’s interior never showed up to their asylum hearings. Because the vast majority of recently arrived illegal immigrants aren’t appearing at their court dates, the ICE official said that the law enforcement agency is subsequently forced to struggle to locate and deport each illegal immigrant – a nearly impossible feat which puts an enormous strain on already strained federal resources.
“That particular population, as we continue to release into the interior hundreds if not thousands of family units into the interior every week, is of grave concern as it relates to these individuals not appearing before immigration judges and now being fugitives,” the ICE official told members of Congress.
Also during the same congressional hearing, another federal immigration official mentioned that only roughly 12 percent of illegal immigrants and border crossers who complete the processes required to file for asylum actually end up qualifying.
A statistic like this really highlights the widespread fraud and abuse that’s currently being perpetrated within the country’s immigration system.
If current rates of illegal immigration keep their course, it’s expected that border apprehensions in 2019 will exceed levels during each and every year of Barack Obama’s presidency. Meanwhile, since President Trump took office in 2016, DHS officials have stated that only around a measly 42 miles of – mostly replacement – border wall and border barriers has been constructed and erected.
In the months leading up to the crucial 2020 presidential election, it has become increasingly clear that American’s are ardently opposed to releasing illegal immigrants and border crossers into the interior of the country after they have been caught by authorities.
Repeatedly, Republican voters have asserted that building a border wall and drastically reducing both illegal and legal immigration is a top priority. It will be interesting to see how serious Trump is in enacting policies that will truly reflect the popular will of the people.
Last month, nearly 2 of 3 American voters told Harvard-Harris pollsters that they were against the catch and release of illegal immigrants and border crossers in the U.S. while they wait for their asylum court hearings. In the same poll, Trump supporters, conservatives, and Republican voters all placed reducing all immigration and building a border wall at the very top of their priorities.
It shouldn’t be forgotten that the people of the United States were never given a vote on whether or not they wanted unfettered and relentless mass immigration into the country which has unquestionably changed its cultural composition – perhaps forever.
