Hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants head to border
11/10/2016 7:27:00 AM
Richard Moore
Lawmakers want answers on new immigration surge
Politics may be slowing down as the American elections conclude and with the arrival soon of the holidays, but the pace of illegal immigration isn't taking a holiday, and four lawmakers called this week on the head of homeland security to do something about it.
In a Nov. 3 letter to Department of Homeland Security secretary Jeh Johnson, Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Virginia), Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-South Carolina), and Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Alabama) urged Johnson to take action to stem what they call a surge of illegal immigrants to the southwest border.
That surge, they wrote, is overwhelming federal agencies.
"Numerous media reports indicate that the ongoing border surge is a large-scale effort to enter the United States before this year's presidential election," the lawmakers said in announcing the letter. "Tens of thousands of unaccompanied minors and family units from Central America continue to pour across the border. Additionally, thousands of Haitians and Africans are arriving at the border and claiming asylum."
Those numbers have consequences, the lawmakers wrote in the letter.
"The onslaught of illegal immigration reflects continued efforts by aliens from Central America - El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala - to overwhelm our limited resources at the border, which inevitably results in the release of tens of thousands of removable aliens within the United States," they wrote. "In addition, thousands of Haitians and Africans are amassing in the Mexican cities of Tijuana and Mexicali for the purpose of presenting themselves to U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers asserting dubious claims of asylum, which will practically guarantee their entry."
That latter group of "Other Than Mexicans" at the southwest border comprises 70-75 percent of all border crossings, the lawmakers wrote, and they say the overall numbers are staggering.
"In fiscal year 2016, the border patrol apprehended 408,870 illegal aliens at the southern border, 23 percent more than the preceding fiscal year," they wrote. "Of those apprehended, more than 77,000 were members of so-called 'family units,' which represents an increase of 95 percent over FY 2015 figures, and nearly 60,000 were unaccompanied alien minors, which reflects a 49 percent increase over the previous fiscal year."
As of the end of October, the lawmakers continued, the Department of Health and Human Services reported that the daily referrals of unaccompanied illegal alien minors averaged 262 over the last week and approximately 237 in October.
"By comparison, referrals averaged 148 per day in October of 2014, the year of the first surge, and 60 per day in October of 2015," they wrote. "As of October 27, 2016, the number of minors in ORR care is approximately 10,700."
Straining to keep up
While the number of apprehensions has climbed sharply over the past year, the lawmakers wrote, that has put a strain on resources, overwhelming both the border patrol and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
"ICE is currently detaining more than 40,000 aliens - a record number - with internal predictions indicating that the number could reach 47,000 in the coming months," they wrote. "Without additional funding, ICE likely will release thousands of those detained into the United States, many of whom are criminals, who will abscond and hide from authorities. We have been made aware through media reports and whistleblowers that ICE faces imminent budgetary shortfalls because the border crisis is driving so many additional foreign nationals into ICE detention."
The Obama administration has failed to prudently manage detention capacity and resources, resulting in the release of many of those aliens into the United States, the lawmakers asserted.
"While we applaud the department's efforts to increase detention capacity in response to this surge, we are keenly aware of the limited resources available to the department for apprehension and detention of removable aliens, and we want to ensure that you are not again considering the mass-release of criminals and other aliens who are subject to removal," they wrote.
The lawmakers also complained that a scheduled briefing to bring them up to speed on the situation had been cancelled, though their respective staffs had worked closely with the department to schedule a bicameral briefing on Tuesday, Nov. 1.
"However, late in the afternoon of Oct. 31, the department abruptly cancelled the scheduled briefing, citing unspecified scheduling conflicts by some of the experts, and recommended that the briefing occur next week," they wrote. "Efforts by our staffs to have the available experts provide a briefing were rejected. With this pressing issue at hand, it is irresponsible to delay efforts to provide information about the surge as quickly and transparently as possible to Congress."
The lawmakers also said they had heard that the department had issued a directive to limit engagement with Congress until immediately before the election.
"Any such directive, if issued, would be an unacceptable political ploy and a serious infringement of Congress' oversight authority under the Constitution," they wrote. "We fully expect that such a directive, if issued, would be immediately rescinded. Additionally, we expect that the department will provide a briefing to our staffs on these critical issues this week."
According to the American Immigration Center, the surge this year threatens to top the surge of 2014, when tens of thousands of immigrants from Central America, primarily families and unaccompanied minors, arrived at the border. And while President Barack Obama labeled that influx a 'humanitarian crisis,' the center states, the influx of more than 130,000 illegal immigrants quickly overwhelmed processing centers, shelters, and U.S. Border Patrol stations.
"The Department of Health and Human Services was forced to step in to manage the care for the thousands of unaccompanied immigrant minors involved," the center states on its website. "The U.S. government took several steps to try to prevent a repeat of the situation."
However, the center continues, the 2016 statistics for border immigrant apprehension and processing seem to show that numbers might reach the highest level yet by the end of the year.
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