The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) has yet to issue court summons for about 82 percent of the illegal immigrants it allowed into the United States after a federal court ordered a halt on a Biden administration immigration parole program.
In May, Judge T. Kent Wetherell II of Florida’s Northern federal court district issued a temporary restraining order (TRO), blocking the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) from releasing noncitizens into the United States through the Biden administration’s “Parole with Conditions” (PWC) policy. The PWC policy allowed for illegal immigrants to be paroled into the United States under the expectation that they’d check in with ICE within 60 days and receive a Notice to Appear (NTA), which would initiate court proceedings for them to be removed from the United States.
The state of Florida sued to block the PWC policy, likening it to an immigration “honor system” that doesn’t do enough to follow up with those released into the United States. Despite Judge Wetherell’s restraining order against the policy, DHS officials proceeded to release more than 2,500 of these illegal immigrants into the United States, justifying the decision by saying that these people had already been processed into the PWC system before Judge Wetherell issued his TRO.
Judge Wetherell responded to this release of illegal immigrants with an order for ICE to provide statistics on how many people ultimately received their NTAs to begin removal proceedings. According to court records (pdf) filed in response, ICE revealed that a group of 2,572 illegal immigrants was released after the TRO, and that 1,065 (about 41.4 percent) of them never actually checked in within 60 days to receive their court summons and initiate their removal proceedings.
Of the 1,507 illegal immigrants who did check in with ICE, the agency said it only issued NTAs for 464 individuals (about 18 percent). In total, 2,108 (about 82 percent) of these immigration parolees are either awaiting their NTAs after 60 days or their whereabouts are unknown.
“These statistics are troubling to say the least,” Judge Wetherell wrote on Tuesday (pdf), in response to ICE’s court filings.
By Ryan Morgan
