President Joe Biden’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has started releasing migrants, who have been in Mexico, into the United States as he ends the “Remain in Mexico” policy that drastically cut asylum fraud.
As part of his ending the Remain in Mexico policy, Biden has started releasing migrants enrolled in the program into the interior of the U.S. even as millions of Americans are required to abide by state-mandated lockdown and quarantine rules.
DHS is admitting the migrants, of which there are 25,600, at ports of entry in San Diego, California, and El Paso and Brownsville, Texas, as Breitbart News exclusively reported. The Biden administration had sought to conceal the three locations where migrants were being admitted.
On Friday, the Associated Press (AP) reported that the first round of migrants are being admitted in San Diego and are being put in hotels for quarantine after they test negative for the Chinese coronavirus.
The AP reports:
The asylum-seekers tested negative for COVID-19 in Mexico and were taken to San Diego hotels to quarantine before they take a plane or bus to their final destinations in the U.S., said Michael Hopkins, chief executive officer of Jewish Family Service of San Diego, which is playing a critical support role. [Emphasis added]
Hopkins said the U.S. is expected to release 25 people a day in San Diego who were enrolled in Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” program, which forced people seeking protection in the U.S. to wait south of the border until their court hearings. Authorities can process up to 300 asylum-seekers a day at the San Diego border crossing, but Hopkins said it’s not known when they will change the target of 25 a day. [Emphasis added]
DHS eventually plans to release about 300 migrants a day in San Diego. In El Paso, DHS is expected to begin on February 26, with a goal of releasing 300 migrants a day, and on February 22 in Brownsville, with a goal of no more than 100 migrants released a day.
Border crossers not enrolled in Remain in Mexico, as Breitbart News has reported, continue to be released into the U.S. interior without having to take coronavirus tests. In some cases, border crossers are put in hotels to quarantine before they are released.
In the first ten days of February, DHS has released at least 2,000 border crossers into the U.S. interior. For comparison, in December 2020 before Remain in Mexico was ended, DHS had released just 11 border crossers.
The Remain in Mexico policy, implemented by the Trump administration, had successfully reduced asylum fraud by ensuring the border crossers claiming asylum are not released into the U.S. interior before their court dates. In many cases, border crossers would never show up to their hearings and instead live illegally in the country.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.
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