ICE Acting Director Tae D. Johnson announced its continuing efforts “to build a more fair, orderly, and humane immigration system” on Thursday. In a memo to Border Patrol agents, Johnson ordered agents to prioritize keeping migrant families together who cross the border into the United States together.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Tae Johnson said agents should ensure that adult migrants who are arrested are able to maintain contact with their children and participate in any related court proceeding. The directive applies to any incapacitated adult for which the migrant adult serves as guardian or caregiver.
“In the course of their duties, our officers and special agents will preserve family unity and the parental rights of non-citizen parents and legal guardians to the greatest extent possible,” Johnson said.
“ICE will ensure that our civil immigration enforcement activities do not unnecessarily disrupt or infringe upon the parental or guardianship rights of non-citizen parents or legal guardians of minor children or incapacitated adults.”
Yeah, we wouldn’t want to infringe on the rights of illegal migrants when it comes to child protection, right? Parents and other adults put the children in that situation by breaking immigration laws and entering the U.S. illegally and bringing them along. The reason ICE is doing this now is to avoid any comparisons to the Trump administration’s policies at the border. Families were separated and children were often placed in detention facilities in other states than where their parents were being held. Since the Biden border crisis continues to broaden and the number of illegal migrants increases, the possibility of parents losing touch with their children increases once the parents are apprehended and taken into custody.
The ICE directive, Parental Interest of Noncitizens Parents and Legal Guardians of Minor Children or Incapacitated Adults, orders the parent or legal guardian waiting for their immigration process to proceed to be able to “maintain visitation with their child or incapacitated adult for whom they serve as guardian, coordinate their care, and participate in any related court or child welfare proceedings.”
Some of the changes include:
Requiring that ICE directorates have procedures in place to identify individuals who are parents or legal guardians of minor children or incapacitated adults, including by affirmatively inquiring about such status when a noncitizen is encountered.
Establishing enhanced procedures and requirements regarding the initial placement and subsequent transfer of parents and legal guardians, including provisions to ensure access to family visitation and child welfare services and programs.
Allowing, on a case-by-case basis, for the return of a previously removed noncitizen via parole in instances where the noncitizen’s in-person participation at a hearing or hearings related to the termination of their parental rights or guardianship is required.
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New training will be developed for relevant ICE personnel on safeguarding the parental or guardianship rights of noncitizens they encounter while executing their duties.
Clearly, the ICE director wants us to think the agency is doing something to help curb the humanitarian crisis on the southern border. The only noticeable change, though, is that now instead of applying to parents and legal guardians of minor children, the policy is updated to include parents and legal guardians of incapacitated adults.
The policy goes into effect immediately and full implementation will be complete in the next several months.
One problem for Team Biden is the hundreds of unaccompanied minors crossing the border without parents or legal guardians. The Border Patrol agents are overwhelmed along the border and cartels control the border. Cartels use wristbands to label who is being delivered across the border or arriving.
Most have been wearing colored wristbands that read “Llegadas,” meaning arrivals, or “Entregas,” meaning deliveries.
The wristbands have helped the cartels keep track of the migrants and their payments for smuggling them, “something that we have never seen in prior years,” Olivarez said. “The immigrants are told once they make landfall to discard these bracelets.”
One eight-year-old girl traveling by herself said she came to the U.S. because the gang members have been dangerous in her home country of Honduras. She had no food and hardly any water.
As law enforcement focuses efforts on the children and families, single adults trying to evade police and those smuggling drugs are able to do so more easily.
The cartels flood the border with illegal migrants and the Border Patrol and other law enforcement are overwhelmed. They are pulled away to process the migrants who are apprehended. There simply are not enough boots on the ground to handle the influx, including the rise in the numbers of unaccompanied children. Babies as young as toddlers have been discovered, unaccompanied, at the border. Clearly, they have been dumped by cartels and left to be found by Border Patrol agents.
Acting Director Tae Johnson may pay lip service to increasing the humanity of Biden’s border policies but there is nothing humanitarian about the Biden border crisis. Simply ignoring immigration laws on the books and refusing to enforce them adds fuel to the fire. Those who are suffering most from Biden’s stubborn decision to do the exact opposite of Trump at every turn has backfired more than once, including on the southern border. Biden owns this national disaster.
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