The acting head of the Customs and Border Protection (CBP), Troy Miller, has told House lawmakers that immediately following the inauguration of Joe Biden, the northern Mexico sate of Tamaulipas stopped accepting families with young children that had illegally crossed the border into the United States. As a consequence, a surge of such migrants ensued, overwhelming the Border Patrol in the Rio Grande Valley (RGV) sector. The CBP, in turn, to save red tape, began releasing the families into the U.S., without even the mandatory Notice to Appear (NTA) in court. Instead, the illegals were simply asked to contact a local Immigration and Customs Enforcement office. Their official forms were therefore marked TBD (To Be Determined) in the space where a court date should be.
On hearing this news, Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ) wrote to DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Wednesday:
Aliens are being released from DHS 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. This is fatuous and an abdication of your statutory obligation.
In regard to the surge, Acting Chief Miller had told the legislators:
The situation on March 19, we encountered 2,439 migrants between the ports of entry in RGV alone. We had over 2,600 unaccompanied children of which 1,943 were held over 72 hours in our soft-sided facilities.
In addition, Fox News reports that in April alone, more than 178,000 migrants–including more than 13,000 unaccompanied children–were encountered along the full length of the border.
For more, see Fox News.