The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) has yet to issue court summons for about 82 percent of the illegal immigrants it allowed into the United States after a federal court ordered a halt on a Biden administration immigration parole program.
Of the 1,507 illegal immigrants who did check in with ICE, the agency said it only issued NTAs for 464 individuals (about 18 percent). In total, 2,108 (about 82 percent) of these immigration parolees are either awaiting their NTAs after 60 days or their whereabouts are unknown.
DHS Lacks Plan To Track Down Missing Illegal Immigrants: Judge
Judge Wetherell said DHS lacks any apparent plan to track down the approximately 41 percent of PWC parolees who failed to check in with ICE after being released subsequent to his TRO.“The Court is skeptical that DHS is serious about tracking down the aliens who did not check in as directed or that it will take any action against them if it ever finds them,” Judge Wetherell wrote.
The Judge noted that ICE had similarly failed to provide any commitments to track down PWC parolees who did not report back to begin their removal proceedings. In addition to providing its tracking statistics for the 2,572 illegal immigrants DHS released, an ICE official said the agency “may take an enforcement action against those noncitizens” including issuing arrest warrants for those individuals, placing them in detention, and initiating their removal proceedings.
“Given that the initiation of removal proceedings is what was supposed to happen if the alien had checked in as directed, it is hard to understand why DHS thinks that aliens will take any of its directives seriously if their ‘punishment’ for not doing so ends up being the same thing that would have happened if they complied,” Judge Wetherell wrote.
Judge Can’t Force DHS to Find Missing Illegals
Judge Wetherell concluded his ruling by ordering the DHS to continue providing periodic reports about the disposition of the 2,572 illegal immigrants it released into the United States after he issued his order blocking the PWC parole policy.“The Court does not have the authority to order DHS to track down and take into custody the aliens who should not have been released under the enjoined PWC policy and who are in violation of their ‘parole’ and unlawfully in the country,” the judge concluded. “All the Court can do at this point is require DHS to continue to provide updated information on those aliens—for whatever that is worth to those who are responsible for overseeing DHS and holding its policymakers accountable for their acts and omissions.”