Border Patrol has processed and released more than 6,413 migrants in the U.S. without cut-off dates or the ability to track them since early Thursday morning, with 2,576 of them released after a judge ordered a halt to the practice the next day. court papers filed Monday. say.
In an affidavit, David BeMiller, Border Patrol’s chief of police operations, said the agency knew the judge had blocked the release of migrants under a new policy known as «parole with conditions» that would allow border agents to release to migrants. without a cut-off date and without the ability to track them if their facilities became overwhelmed.
But, he said, it was difficult to reverse course because, at the time of the court order, 2,576 migrants who had been fully processed under the policy were awaiting release. Therefore, they were released under those provisions.
When the court issued its temporary restraining order, «all sectors had ceased releases for the day for non-citizens who were fully processed,» BeMiller said in its statement. Consequently, Border Patrol on Friday released «these non-citizens who had been fully processed before the TRO went into effect.»
In addition to those released into the US under «parole with conditions,» other migrants have been released into the country to file asylum claims with court dates. An administration official said those released to file asylum claims have been thoroughly vetted through security checks.
NBC News was the first to report on the Biden administration’s «parole with conditions» policy, which it released just before Thursday’s end of the Title 42 Covid ban. Florida cited the article in its lawsuit to block the policy from going into effect.
The Florida attorney general’s office mischaracterized the reports in its lawsuit, saying the article indicated migrants would be released «en masse.» NBC News did not say the migrants would be released en masse.
Border crossings continue to decline
When Title 42 expired, it had blocked more than 2.5 million border crossings since its imposition in 2020. In the days before it was lifted, the number of migrants crossing the border began to rise, and experts predicted that the number of crossings per day could increase. it hit 13,000 to 14,000 after the official end of Title 42. The Biden administration began enforcing “parole with conditions” Thursday morning.
Despite those dire predictions, the number of migrants crossing the southern border fell Monday for the fourth straight day since the end of Title 42. Just over 3,700 undocumented immigrants were apprehended by Border Patrol Monday, according to a U.S. Department of Homeland Security. .
The number of migrants at Customs and Border Protection processing centers has also dropped, from more than 28,000 last Wednesday to just over 18,000 on Friday night, according to an administration official.
Blas Nuñez-Neto, undersecretary for border policy and immigration at the Department of Homeland Security, said 2,400 Mexicans have been sent back to Mexico, along with hundreds of Venezuelans, Cubans and Nicaraguans since the lifting of Title 42. He also said the department it has sent thousands of migrants back to their home countries since the end of the Covid ban.