Under the Biden Administration, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has refused to announce the total number of illegal aliens who have been caught and released into the country without first having a set court date appearance, as reported by the Daily Caller.
Although nearly 25,000 such illegals were issued Notices to Appear (NTAs) in the first two months of 2021, CBP and other immigration officials have been silent on that number in recent months. Of those roughly 25,000 illegals, just over 10,000 were released, while the remaining 15,000 were detained.
The CBP did confirm that it had encountered over 100,000 illegals in the month of February, including over 9,000 minors, but did not say how many of them were released without court dates.
Chris Cabrera, a spokesman for the National Border Patrol Council, told the press back in March that “there are too many people” coming across the border, “and we’re not equipped to deal with this many people.”
“We have one station that we’ve hit over 1,000 apprehensions in a 24-hour period a couple times in the last week or so,” Cabrera continued. “I think one was 1,100 and another day was 1,500.”
NTAs are issued to illegal aliens via the Department of Homeland Security, setting a date by which the illegals in question are to appear before an immigration court on formal charges of the crime of illegally entering the United States, which could be grounds for deportation.
Border Patrol agents speaking to Fox News said that they had been ordered to “use prosecutorial discretion” in determining which illegals should be issued NTAs, since the process of filling out NTA paperwork takes several hours. As one Border Patrol official put it, “BP has no choice but to release people nearly immediately after apprehension because there is no space to hold people, even to do necessary NTA paperwork.”
The surge in illegal immigration has been attributed to Joe Biden’s repeated promises on the campaign trail of a more open-border approach to immigration, as well as promises of taxpayer-funded benefits for illegals, such as education and healthcare. This has led to a spike in illegal immigration that has already reached a 16-year-high on the southern border.