Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas reportedly admitted on Monday that immigration authorities release over 85% of the migrants that they detain.
Mayorkas met privately with Border Patrol agents in Eagle Pass, Texas, where he was asked about comments he recently made on Fox News. During an interview last week, Fox News anchor Bret Baier asked Mayorkas about the number of migrants being released into the U.S. each day, citing sources that say it is about 70% of all who are detained.
Dodging the question, Mayorkas responded, “It would not surprise me at all. I know the data.”
But on Monday, the secretary provided a more direct answer, according to multiple Border Patrol sources present at the meeting. Mayorkas told Border Patrol agents the current release rate is “above 85%,” Fox News’ Bill Melugin reported.
Considering that more than 240,000 migrants have been detained each month in fiscal year 2024, that means approximately 200,000 migrants — or more — are being released into the U.S. general population each month. They are released with conditions, known as alternatives to detention. But because the immigration court system is so backlogged, it will be years — as many as seven or eight — before most of them ever see a day in court.
DHS did not deny Mayorkas’ admission but released a statement boasting of the Biden administration’s deportations.
The statement said:
After the ending of Title 42 in May, through the end of the fiscal year, DHS removed or returned more noncitizens without a basis to remain in the United States than in any other five-month period in the last ten years. In fact, the majority of all Southwest Border migrant encounters throughout this Administration have been removed, returned, or expelled – the majority of them. We are doing everything we can, within a broken system, to incentivize noncitizens to use lawful pathways, to impose consequences on those who do not, and to reduce irregular migration.
The agency, however, failed to provide evidence of the claims.
It is important, moreover, to note the language the statement uses: “noncitizens without a basis to remain in the United States.” This presumably does not count the millions of migrants who are processed and released into the U.S. as they await a ruling on their asylum claims in the backlogged immigration court system.
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