ICE & Border Protection say Texas border situation has “become so dire that Border Patrol has no choice but to release people nearly immediately because there's no space to hold people."
WASHINGTON, D.C. (Texas Insider Report) — President Joe Biden is now releasing illegal border crossers who claim asylum into the United States without issuing them a Notice to Appear (NTA) in court, an exclusive report by Fox News confirmed Sunday. Border Patrol agents in South Texas' Rio Grande Valley Sector (RGV) have begun to implement process and release procedures - allowing illegal border crossers to depart custody without scheduling a court date for a hearing.
The situation at the Texas border has “become so dire that Border Patrol has no choice but to release people nearly immediately after apprehension because there is no space to hold people, even to do necessary Notice to Appear (NTA) paperwork,” the source told Fox News.
Asked by a reporter earlier this month if he believed there was "a crisis" at the southern border, Biden said “No, we’ll be able to handle it.”
The rising flood of migrants to the Rio Grande Valley Sector (RGV) in far south Texas has resulted in Federal Facilities there housing migrants at over 700% of capacity, leading to the unprecedented move of giving responsibility of setting a future asylum hearing on the migrants, rather than Immigrations & Customs Enforcement (ICE) or Customs & Border Protection (CBP) setting a hearing date, Fox News reports.
History – and critics of the Biden Administrations slew of recent Executive Orders and policies – indicate that fewer than 10% of migrants ever schedule an asylum hearing on their own.
Multiple Border Patrol agents confirmed the new process, revealing they have been directed to use "Prosecutorial Discretion" (PD) to forgo the hours-long process of paperwork required to issue an NTA amid the surge of migrants at the border.
The process of issuing each migrant an NTA can take hours per individual or family. This process does not, however, apply to unaccompanied minors who are transferred to the U.S. Health & Human Services Facilities for processing and detention.
The number of migrant children now in U.S. custody surged past 15,000 on Saturday.
The Biden team’s move comes as the Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) is struggling to open another facility for unaccompanied child migrants in Pecos, Texas, the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) announced Saturday.
The Temporary Influx Care Facility would house at least 500 unaccompanied minors to start, with the capacity to house 2,000 children.
But with the number of migrant children now in U.S. custody having surged well past 15,000 over the weekend, reports say many are being held beyond the legal three-day limit.
Children who enter the U.S. without their parents or another adult are now spending an average of 136 hours in border patrol custody before being turned over to HHS. The amount of time allowed under U.S. law is 72 hours.
Kansas Republican Sen. Roger Marshall, who was at the Texas border last weekend, said:
"We have such big masses of people, and we can’t handle the volume.
"Without secure borders, we cannot ensure our nation’s safety, period.”
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has ordered Texas Department of Public Safety officers and Texas National Guard troops to the border in an effort to “combat the smuggling of people and drugs into Texas.”
