41% of illegal immigrants released by the Biden administration did not attend their court hearings.
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.
In May, Judge T. Kent Wetherell II of Florida’s Northern federal court district issued a
The state of Florida sued to block the PWC policy, likening it to an immigration “honor system” that doesn’t do enough to follow up with those released into the United States. Despite Judge Wetherell’s restraining order against the policy, DHS officials proceeded to release more than 2,500 of these illegal immigrants into the United States, justifying the decision by saying that these people had already been processed into the PWC system before Judge Wetherell issued his TRO.
Judge Wetherell responded to this release of illegal immigrants with an order for ICE to provide statistics on how many people ultimately received their NTAs to begin removal proceedings. According to court records (pdf) filed in response, ICE revealed that a group of 2,572 illegal immigrants was released after the TRO, and that 1,065 (about 41.4 percent) of them never actually checked in within 60 days to receive their court summons and initiate their removal proceedings.
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.
“These statistics are troubling to say the least,” Judge Wetherell wrote on Tuesday (pdf), in response to ICE’s court filings.
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 the only way to ensure that these individuals are held accountable for their immigration violations, the Court expects that ICE will take all necessary steps to initiate removal proceedings against those individuals who have not yet received an NTA,” Judge Wetherell concluded.
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