Immigration and Customs Enforcement recently informed The New York Post that they had released 43 of the over 200 undocumented immigrants charged with storming the southern border earlier this year.
On March 21, a sizable group of undocumented immigrants stormed the police station in El Paso, Texas. The Post was able to obtain video of the boisterous group of mostly adult males tearing down the concertina wire close to Gate 36, which is a gated border region that is not a designated port of entry. The footage shows the illegal aliens running up to the entrance after pushing past five guardsmen.
“When we apprehend a child molester, sometimes housing space allows us to release him.”
The state placed the 211 people under custody after charging them with participating in a riot. Judge Ruben Morales of El Paso County dismissed the charges in May, citing the state’s failure to produce a transfer order necessary to shift the cases from district court to county court.
ICE then took the illegal immigrants into custody and charged them with federal unlawful entry.
An ICE representative told the Post that they let 43 of the people into the country and deported another 43. The spokesperson stated that thirty-two individuals are currently awaiting hearings, while 105 others are under detention until their expulsion from the country.
ICE releases people on a “case-by-case basis,” the official informed the news source.
A spokesperson for Enforcement and Removal Operations said that officers “make responsible decisions on related enforcement actions and apply prosecutorial discretion, where applicable,” taking into account their experience as law enforcement professionals and how best to protect the communities they serve.
An official from the Department of Homeland Security told the Post that ICE releases some illegal immigrants from custody to reserve its limited jail capacity for those accused of the most serious crimes.
“When we arrest a child molester, sometimes housing space allows us to free him. Alternatively, the allegation is not severe enough to warrant their detention,” the insider asserted.
Following a prior story by Blaze News, ICE just revealed that it intends to close the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, Texas, which is the agency’s largest detention facility with a capacity to hold 2,400 inmates.
ICE said that the facility is its “most expensive” in a June press release. By eliminating the detention facility, the goal is to “raise the overall detention capacity by around an estimated 1,600 beds to better serve operational needs.”
