Patrick Reckleitner, acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), said it was “fairly common” for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to “not have any information” about migrants released into the US at the southern border.
Rechleitner’s comments came after eight Tajikistani migrants with ties to the Islamic State (ISIS) were arrested and investigated by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in three states after crossing the border this week, but Homeland Security officials had no information at the time that they had terrorism ties.
Between interview During an interview with NewsNation, Rechleitner was asked specifically about migrants with ties to ISIS and how they were allowed into the U.S. after crossing the border.
“Well, listen, we have individuals coming across and they [had background checks done] They are met at the border by Customs and Border Protection. [ICE] But sometimes there is no information about an individual at all,” Rechleitner said.
It’s common that there is nothing, nothing at all, on these individuals, including criminal histories and threat information. Or maybe these individuals are from areas of particular concern that will become clear later when we get information, as in this case, we worked with the FBI to go out and get them as soon as we got information. [Emphasis added]
The remarks are significant because President Joe Biden’s Department of Homeland Security has turned the border into European-style checkpoints, where the overwhelming majority of migrants — perhaps nine in 10 — are apprehended, briefly detained, and then released into American communities with court dates set years later.
A Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report released in January found that the Department of Homeland Security has admitted more than 6.2 million migrants into the U.S. interior since President Biden took office.
In another part of the NewsNation interview, Reckleitner said the record influx of illegal immigrants in recent years has led to one ICE agent being tasked with handling thousands of immigration cases.
“Like, you have probation and parole officers overseeing about 7,000 people … yeah, it’s ridiculous, it’s really insane,” Reckleitner said. “It’s just too big, it’s untenable.”
Specifically, Reckleitner said ICE is asking Congress to fund at least 50,000 detention beds, significantly more than the 25,000 requested by Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
Even if Congress were to fund Reckleitner’s request for detention beds, they would only fill a tiny fraction of the immigrants on ICE’s no-detention list.
For example, by the end of fiscal year 2023, there will be 6.2 million immigrants in deportation proceedings but not in custody and living freely across the United States, suggesting that more detention beds and a significant expansion of monitoring programs will be needed to ensure that immigrants are adequately tracked by authorities.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter. here.
