ICE dumping immigrants in border towns due to overcrowding at detention centersEL PASO, Texas -- Faced with overcrowding at migrant shelters, Immigration and Customs Enforcement is dumping illegal immigrants in border towns, sometimes by the busloads.
In El Paso, a Texas border town already taking in dozens of migrants a day, ICE said it may have to release 500 people a day to relieve the overcrowding situation at federal detention centers.
I’m concerned. We’re up to 2,300 per week. If we get up to 500 a day, it’s going to be very taxing,” said Mayor Dee Margo.
Non-profit organizations in Texas, like the Annunciation House, are finding themselves scrambling to find housing for the immigrants. The house has taken the lead in connecting the migrants to a network of 20 shelters it operates, which include high school gyms and places of worship.
“Over the past two, three months, the volume of families, individuals being released has increased,” said Ruben Garcia, Annunciation House director.
After migrants are arrested by Customs and Border Protection and given a court date by immigration officials, they are released. Many of the immigrants don't stay in the border cities and instead often leave by bus or plane to meet friends, family members, or sponsors in different parts of the country.
Still, the growing number of immigrants getting dropped off in the border towns is straining resources.
Last week, ICE dumped hundreds of migrants into the streets of El Paso, drawing criticism from immigration activists and shelters. Garcia said ICE usually gives them advance notice prior to releasing migrants – but did not do so in this case.
“I think that it’s important to state that it is unacceptable to release families with children, some of them very young children to the street. That, we have to say, is non-negotiable. That is simply not acceptable,” said Garcia.
ICE has defended the practice, saying that a spike in border crossings is giving the agency few other options.
“Due to the rising influx of family units crossing the border, NGOs have expressed they are over capacity and cannot accommodate all the family unit releases,” the agency said in a statement.
The agency added that due to a decades-old court agreement called the Flores Settlement, it can only detain families for a limited period of time before eventually being forced to release them.
The immigrant dumping is not only happening in Texas. In Arizona last Thursday, 80 migrants were dropped off at a Phoenix Greyhound bus station.
University of Texas at El Paso Political Science Professor Todd Curry said he believes the deaths of two children in Customs and Border Protection custody last month is contributing to the spike in releases.
“They [ICE] don’t want it to happen again. And, they don’t have the infrastructure to handle it. So, they’re getting rid of it,” Curry said.
ICE has denied that is the case.
SAN DIEGO NON-PROFITS RUNNING OUT OF SPACE FOR MIGRANT CARAVAN ASYLUM SEEKERS
The number of releases tends to fluctuate – but officials in El Paso said they have not experienced the numbers they are currently seeing.
Releases averaged about 200 a week in January and February last year, and there have been surges in the past as well—one in 2014 and another in 2016. Garcia said because of the uptick in border crossers, ICE has increased the number of releases.
[more at link]
Please tell me some more how this isn't an actual crisis, and how Trump is responsible for Democrats' refusal to secure the border. Trump has a principled goal of securing the border. Democrats are hypocritically engaging in demagoguery and false narrative just to score a political win, at the cost of actual lives. Tens of thousands of them.
All this chaos is being orchestrated by the Democrats. And all the overdoses, all the rapes, all the American citizens vicitmized by illegals
who shouldn't even be here are evidence of Demcorats' cynical indifference to the suffering caused by their obstruction of the law.
