(ConservativeSense.com) – Amid historic illegal migration into the U.S., the Biden administration will be scaling back the population of illegal immigrants held in daily detention centers by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the use of “alternatives to detention.”
While the Department of Homeland Security deals with record numbers of illegal immigrant encounters at the border, the Congressional Budget Justification for the fiscal year 2024 overview for funds provided to ICE indicates plans to lower the adult average daily population (ADP) of those being detained.
The ADP was 34,000 in the fiscal year 2023 and will be reduced to 25,000, which ICE said would still be enough to maintain its ability to manage the situation.
On top of reducing detentions, the Biden administration will also scale back deportations. The justification says only 29,392 illegal aliens are planned to be deported in the fiscal year 2024, which is a significant decrease from the 151,000 who were deported in the fiscal year 2020.
All of this seems counterproductive to Republicans, especially as migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border and being released into the country only continue to increase. They accuse Biden’s administration of deliberately targeting ICE’s ability to send illegal immigrants back over the border. In 2021, the administration attempted to put a moratorium on deportations.
In 2022, Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas seemed proud of these changes to enforcement, saying that “for the first time ever, our policy explicitly states that a non-citizen’s unlawful presence… will not, by itself, be a basis for the initiation of an enforcement action.”
GOP Sen. Katie Britt of Alabama said cutting detention bed space “amid unprecedented surges of migrants is a clear sign that the President wants to triple down on his catch-and-release, open borders agenda.”
Some states are fighting back. Texas GOP. Rep. Matt Shaefer recently introduced a bill to make the crossing into Texas in order to avoid legal immigration proceedings as a state felony. Violators could face one to two years in jail after their second violation, and even life in prison if previously convicted of a felony.
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