The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is releasing from custody more than 2,000 border-crossing adults and the children they arrived with over the course of a few weeks.
A DHS official confirmed to Breitbart News that the U.S. Border Patrol and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency is releasing more than 2,000 family units caught at the U.S.-Mexico border, citing a lack of detention space.
The border-crossing adults and the children they arrived at the border with will be released and given a court date for an immigration hearing. The adults will be given ankle monitors, though the DHS official says the process of keeping track of border-crossers via ankle monitors is not effective.
Border Patrol and ICE are experiencing major issues with detention space at the Yuma, Arizona sector of the border, as well as in San Diego, California, El Paso, Texas, and the Rio Grande Valley sector of the southern border.
The DHS official said there is not nearly enough bed space for family units at border detention facilities, while Border Patrol encounters about 2,100 border-crossers a day with more than 60 percent of those adults bringing children with them in the hope to be quickly released into the interior of the country.
Photos captured over the last couple of weeks reveal the mass release of border-crossing family units by DHS:
Asylum seekers stand at a bus stop after they were dropped off by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at the Greyhound bus station in downtown El Paso, Texas late on December 23, 2018. – The group of around 200, mostly made up of Central Americans, were left without money, food, and means of communication. Volunteers from Annunciation house and other local churches came to aid and find a place to house them for the night. (PAUL RATJE/AFP/Getty Images)
Asylum seekers board a bus stop after they were dropped off by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials earlier at the Greyhound bus station in downtown El Paso, Texas late on December 23, 2018. – The group of around 200, mostly made up of Central Americans, were left without money, food, and means of communication. Volunteers from Annunciation house and other local churches came to aid and find a place to house them for the night. (PAUL RATJE/AFP/Getty Images)
Central American migrants are pictured making their way to El Paso Sun Metro buses after being dropped off in downtown El Paso by Immigration and Customs Enforcement late in the afternoon on Christmas day, December 25, 2018. – About 200 Asylum seekers were dropped off by ICE as part of a wave of mass releases over the Christmas holidays, which began on the night of December 23. Since, Annunciation House and volunteer groups have scrambled to accommodate the asylum seekers who would otherwise be stranded without food, water, shelter, and means of communication. (PAUL RATJE/AFP/Getty Images)
Central American migrants are pictured making their way to El Paso Sun Metro buses after being dropped off in downtown El Paso by Immigration and Customs Enforcement late in the afternoon on Christmas day, December 25, 2018. – About 200 Asylum seekers were dropped off by ICE as part of a wave of mass releases over the Christmas holidays, which began on the night of December 23. Since, Annunciation House and volunteer groups have scrambled to accommodate the asylum seekers who would otherwise be stranded without food, water, shelter, and means of communication. (PAUL RATJE/AFP/Getty Images)
A DHS spokesperson blamed the country’s immigration loophole, known as the Flores Settlement Agreement, in a statement to Breitbart News.
“We are living through an immigration crisis that is in part driven by a disastrous ruling by a district court judge in the Ninth Circuit that incentives illegal alien adults to put their children in the hands of smugglers and traffickers,” Waldman told Breitbart News in a statement. “The Flores Settlement Agreement has created an immigration loophole that rewards parents for bringing their children with them to the United States.”
The Flores Settlement Agreement — to which the President Trump’s administration has demanded an end — requires border-crossing family units to be released after 20 days, even before their immigration hearing. The result is a growing illegal alien population, as less than two percent of border-crossing family units are deported.
“Since 2015, we have seen a 169 percent increase in family units crossing the border. There has been a 110 percent increase in males traveling with children over the last two years,” Waldman said. “As long as activist judges continue to set national immigration policy they continue to put family units and innocent children in harm’s way.”
As the Trump administration mass releases border-crossing family units, illegal immigration continues surging at the southern border. Breitbart News’s Bob Price reports that about 22,000 border-crossing minors crossed the border last month.
In November 2018, there were close to 52,000 border crossings on the southern border, alone, marking the highest level of illegal immigration in the month of November since 2006. Projections indicate that illegal immigration for next year will reach 600,000 border crossings, the highest level of illegal immigration in more than a decade.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.
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