When Joe Biden was vice-president, Barack Obama gained notoriety by distributing eponymous “Obama Phones” free of charge to poor American citizens under the Lifeline Assistance program.
Biden, now in the top spot, may go his old boss one better by giving free cell phones to illegal migrants he’s releasing under the Alternatives to Detention program.
Ostensibly for purposes of tracking, the phones will replace ankle monitoring bracelets, which heretofore have been the method most often used to track illegal residents. Since those devices, costing between $400 and $800, are often forcibly removed and discarded, the idea now apparently is to provide a tracking device that the released illegal will want to hang onto. The new practice may also, by what we are sure is happy coincidence, be a nice boon for the folks who market phones and those in China who manufacture them.
With more migrants crossing our southern border and fewer being returned under Title 42, the demand for tracking capability is sure to grow. On Tuesday of this week, the House Appropriations Committee advanced the 2022 Homeland Security funding bill, allocating $475 million for that purpose. That amount represents an huge increase from the $149 million in 2020 and is $34.5 million above even ICE’s request for this year. The large sum is viewed by many as a signal that the current “catch and release” policy will continue.
For more, see Breitbart News.