(RightWing.org) – Since 2021, when President Joe Biden assumed office, immigration at the Southern border has grown out of control. US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has seen its backlog of migrants grow from just over 3 million to more than 7 million in that time. Now, a recent report indicates that the federal agency may have released more than 11,000 high-flight-risk immigrants into the US interior.
Report Details
On June 12, the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Office of Inspector General (OIG) released its final report titled: “ICE’s Risk Classification Assessment Process Was Not Consistently Used to Prevent the Release of High-Risk Individuals.” The report details the failures of the risk classification assessment (RCA) process and suggests recommendations for ICE to implement.
In its findings, the OIG “determined ICE released 11,754 (3%) of 339,478 noncitizens who received a risk assessment recommendation to detain.” Of those, 328 were deemed to be “a high risk to public safety,” and 11,608 were considered to be “a high flight risk.” Another 813 were at medium risk of posing danger to the public, and 10,613 were low risk.
Released With Little Data
Adding insult to injury, the OIG determined that not only were these individuals released contrary to the recommendation that they be detained, but “ICE officials did not always sufficiently document the rationale for these decisions.” The office sampled a small selection of records and found that 191 of 266, 71%, had insufficient documentation and contained vague orders such as “release,” “order of release on recognizance,” or a series of numbers without further explanation.
Those that did have an explanation included notes that indicated the migrant had no criminal history or no significant criminal history, poor health, or was “part of a family unit from the SWB [Southwest border].”
Based on the sampling size, the OIG was able to reasonably “estimate that between 7,860 and 8,931 RCA records” failed to meet the guideline of “sufficient information to determine why ICE officers released the noncitizen.”
OIG Recommendations
The OIG issued two recommendations in light of its findings. First, it suggests the agency “assig[n] an office to manage the RCA process,” and second, establish formal policies and procedures to ensure consistency among noncitizens. ICE agreed with both.
Immigration is sure to play a large part in the 2024 election. The GOP has long accused the Biden Administration of allowing migrants to run amok. Biden recently took action to shut the border until daily crossings decline to 1,500, but that does nothing to address the migrant crisis in the United States right now. Former President Donald Trump has maintained that he will end Biden’s open-border policies on his first day in office.
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