Written By Andrew Morris
Andy Biggs, Republican Representative from Arizona, accused the Department of Homeland Security of a “clear violation” of the law in a letter Wednesday morning to Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
Mayorkas had admitted to the U.S. Senate Committee last week that the DHS has been releasing migrants into the states without a court date or notice to appear, under the pretense of having them “show up” to an ICE office instead.
“It is our policy to issue a notice to appear to individuals who are permitted entry into the United States to make their claim,” Mayorkas said at a Senate hearing last week. “Ideally, they are issued the notice to appear at the Border Patrol station. If we are not able to do that, the objective is to issue them a notice to appear at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement office to which they are directed.”
The reasoning behind this policy was due to overcrowding at Border Patrol offices as a result of the NTA issuing procedures which take several hours.
Yet anyone who thinks through this method should realize that many migrants have no inclination to appear of their own free will to appear in court, especially with the end result possibly being deportation.
“Aliens are being released from DHS [Department of Homeland Security] custody without being issued NTAs and DHS is unreasonably expecting these illegal entrants to voluntarily report to ICE to receive a charging document and court date,” Biggs wrote on Wednesday. “This is fatuous and an abdication of your statutory obligation.”
Biggs adds that the DHS is violating the Immigration and Nationality Act which states that for inadmissible aliens, “detention is mandatory.”
“Notwithstanding very specific exceptions, the INA does not allow DHS to simply release aliens en masse into the interior of the United States without scheduling a hearing with the immigration courts,” he adds. “Thus, your decision to release hundreds of thousands of aliens into the United States without an NTA is a clear violation of the law.”
Biggs then asks DHS and Mayorkas to comment on how many migrants have reported to ICE offices and received court dates, in addition to how many have been stopped or removed by law enforcement.
He then delves into the bigger issue throughout the whole Biden Administration and their negligence regarding border security.
“Secretary Mayorkas needs to be held accountable. The Biden administration’s refusal to address the chaos at the southern border is causing the crisis to worsen each day,” Biggs said in a statement to Fox. “Instead of incentivizing illegal aliens to flood across our border, he must enforce the law and secure our nation’s sovereignty.”
As of now, Mayorkas or DHS have not released a statement responding to these allegations.
