At least 1,100 border crossers and illegal aliens were released into the interior of the United States this weekend, local reports confirm, as the country’s catch and release program surges.
Reports out of San Antonio and Laredo, Texas, revealed that Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials under the direction of DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen have released at least 1,100 border crossers and illegal aliens into the country this weekend in these Texas regions, alone.
In San Antonio, Catholic Charities officials told local media that more than 1,000 border crossers and illegal aliens were dropped off at a Greyhound bus station in the area on Saturday because federal immigration detention centers in Eagle Pass, Del Rio, and the Rio Grande Valley are operating at full capacity and do not have sufficient space.
These border crossers and illegal aliens are put up in hotels until they buy tickets to resettle in other states in the U.S.
In Laredo, sources told local media that more than 100 border crossers and illegal aliens were dropped off at bus stations in the area over the weekend. The sources claim that about 90 percent of the foreign nationals released are Hondurans.
For months, DHS officials have said privately that the catch and release program has been taken to new heights, while Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) union officials declared this week that the program was in “overdrive” under Nielsen’s direction of the agency.
In the El Paso region, non-profit organizations said about 1,800 border crossers and illegal aliens were expected to be released into the U.S. this weekend. Officials with ICE have yet to confirm these releases with Breitbart News.
As DHS has previously noted, the overwhelming majority of border crossers and illegal aliens — about 11 to 22 million — released into the interior of the U.S. are never deported from the country. Even those roughly 1.7 million illegal aliens with deportation orders continue not to be readily deported, as Breitbart News reported.
In an expansive report, Breitbart News recently confirmed that between December 21, 2018, and March 5, 2019, DHS released a total of 84,500 border crossers and illegal aliens into the U.S. This release process often entails federal immigration officials busing border crossers into nearby border cities and dropping them off with the promise that they will show up for their immigration and asylum hearings, sometimes years later.
Federal immigration officials expect the catch and release program to be supercharged this year as the Trump administration most recently expanded the program and cut back on ICE detention space that would have decreased the number of foreign nationals released from DHS custody.
Current illegal immigration projections predict that aside from the border crossers and illegal aliens who are caught by Border Patrol and then released into the interior of the country, there could be about half a million illegal aliens who successfully cross into the U.S. through the southern border, undetected, this year.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.