Border Patrol agents in the Rio Grande Valley have begun releasing illegal aliens from custody without issuing a return court date due to limited space in already-overwhelmed holding facilities, Fox News confirmed on Sunday.
According to a senior source with Customs and Border Protection, the agency instructed Border Patrol to give any migrants who claim asylum and are apprehended in the valley near-immediate releases “because there is no space to hold people even to do necessary [Notice to Appear] paperwork.” Instead of requiring migrants to get a notice to appear in court to determine if they will be deported, as normal CBP policy requires, all that is asked of those whom Border Patrol plans to release is a biometric data scan at “temporary outdoor processing sites” that can be quickly added to the system.
On Monday, some migrants told NBC News they were “simply given identification documents that they were told to show local law enforcement if they were stopped while in the U.S.” without being asked for further information, including how to contact them for an immigration hearing. Others said they were asked for their contact information and told they would be reached about a potential court date within 30 days of their release.
The decision, official documents say, is “intended to mitigate operational challenges, including risks to national security, during significant surges of illegal migration as currently exist in the Rio Grande Valley” by forcing people out of custody to alleviate space and resources, but the newest instructions also follow a “dire” influx of thousands of aliens crossing the southern border into the United States, overloading some detention facilities in the Rio Grande Valley by as much as 700 percent overcapacity.
Just last week, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas admitted that border crossings were “on track to be the highest in 20 years.” Since the beginning of February, more than 100,000 migrants illegally crossed the southern border into the United States, many of them unaccompanied minors whom the Biden administration refuses to expel.
Despite the surge of border crossings and frenzied attempts by Health and Human Services, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and other government organizations to handle the influx of unaccompanied minors by opening more facilities and even investing in hotel rooms to house migrants, the Biden administration and Mayorkas continue to claim the southern U.S. border “is secure and not open” and deny that there is a crisis.
