After more than 11,000 migrants were caught crossing the southern border on Tuesday, the Biden administration is now preparing a memo that will direct Customs and Border Protection to begin releasing migrants into the United States without court dates or the ability to track them, according to three sources familiar with the plans.
The Biden administration began releasing migrants without court dates to alleviate overcrowding in March 2021, but had previously enrolled those migrants in a program known as Alternatives to Detention, which required them to check in on a mobile app until they were eventually given a court date. The new policy would release them on “parole” with a notice to report to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement office but without enrolling them in the program.
The more than 11,000 border apprehensions in a single day is a record and surpasses expectations of 10,000 per day predicted by Department of Homeland Security officials on what could come when Covid restrictions lift late Thursday.
“We’re already breaking and we haven’t hit the starting line,” one DHS official told NBC News, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the person isn’t authorized to talk to the media.
May 10, 202303:07
Those restrictions, known as Title 42, have turned back migrants choosing to seek asylum more than 2.5 million times since the policy was enacted in March 2020. The Biden administration is set to lift Title 42 at 11:59 p.m. ET Thursday, allowing more migrants to enter the country and be screened for a potential asylum claim. The policy shift is expected to draw more migrants and slow down processing times for migrants in Border Patrol custody.
Already, Customs and Border Protection processing centers are holding more than 27,000 migrants, according to the two sources familiar with the numbers, far higher than the roughly 18,500 the facilities are equipped to hold.
The decision to begin quickly releasing migrants in centers that are over capacity is designed to alleviate overcrowding in them ahead of what is expected to be a greater surge when Title 42 lifts.
“It’s a public health danger. We will start having people die,” the DHS official said about the overcrowding problem.
Customs and Border Protection did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
