Lawyers for the federal government said border patrol released almost 6,400 migrants from their custody without giving them notices to appear in immigration court or having a way to track them in the US, according to court documents.
More than 30,000 people were apprehended on the border between May 8 and May 10, leaving holding facilities completely overwhelmed.
To solve the problem, Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz gave an order to start letting migrants go without first assigning them a date to report in with the government.
They were instead told to arrange an appointment with Immigration and Customs Enforcement themselves near to their final desination within 60 days.
Fearing the security risk this presented, Florida’s Attorney General sued the Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas and the Biden administration.
A federal judge issued a restraining order to prevent the release of more migrants under “parole with conditions” from 11:59 p.m. on Thursday, which it complied with.
In an answer to the lawsuit, lawyers for the goverment quote Customs and Border Protection data showing 6,413 people released in this way Thursday.
Conflicting paragraphs in the papers stated either 2,576 of those migrants were processed under “Parole with Conditions” on Thursday but not released until Friday, or that they were in addition to the other releases, in which case it would bring the total up to 8,989 people released without papers.
A previous order to let migrants go with notices to report to ICE had been tried in 2021 and was unsuccessful, as thousands of those migrants simply didn’t ever check in, according to the Washington Times.
National Sheriffs’ Association President Sheriff Greg Champagne called the current border situation a “humanitarian crisis”
He told The Post: “The administration knew this was coming. They didn’t provide any extra funding to be able to handle this influx of immigrants.
“We’re not saying that every immigrant who’s released is a threat to the public’s safety. But how can you be safe for everyone? We’ve got people coming into the country and we don’t know who they are … whether they’re a criminal [in their home country].
“The border sheriffs are at their wits end. Pretty much everybody’s going to be a border sheriff soon if they’re not already.”
According to the department’s review of the CBP systems it “has identified some data indicating possible noncompliance with respect to a relatively small number of individuals. Defendants are investigating that issue and will report back to the Court promptly.”
The agency said in court docs according to compiled data at least 167 people “appear” to have been processed for Parole with Conditions, but who do not reflect a process complete time before the order took effect.
The Biden administration is currently fighting the court order.
