Biden Administration Issues Extortion Threat to American Communities

WASHINGTON, D.C. — In response to its desperate extortion threat being echoed by the media, RJ Hauman, president of the National Immigration Center for Enforcement (NICE), charged that the Biden Administration is not properly spending funds allocated by Congress, also noting that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was given more detention beds than requested by the White House:

“There is so much to unpack on a baseless claim being echoed by the media, that the Biden Administration has no choice but to reduce deportations and release illegal aliens from detention until a ‘border security’ supplemental is signed into law. This is nothing more than a misleading extortion attempt to prolong a self-inflicted invasion that has been compounded by the gutting of interior enforcement. Keep in mind this is an administration that sought to suspend all deportations for 100 days and proposed a mass amnesty on day one – efforts built upon through the issuance of radical policy memos.

“First, Congress gave the Biden Administration more money than it requested for the detention of illegal aliens. The last spending bill, which has been continued at the same level, rejected a request to slash ICE detention capacity by 30 percent, instead providing $379.6 million above it to maintain 34,000 beds. So, what is ICE spending money on that created this volitional budget gap? Lawmakers and the media should not only ask this question but examine shady programs that provide social services to illegal aliens and the improper management of detention. We must also keep in mind that the Trump Administration was able to significantly exceed the appropriated amount of detention beds to address a border uptick. The Biden Administration is only a tad over, after refusing to meet the appropriated bed total month after month.

“Second, while the Senate-passed supplemental is being billed as a bipartisan funding package, mostly due to its Ukraine and Israel components, it contains countless policy changes that would convert the Biden Administration’s destructive policies and violations of immigration law into statute. These reforms would not only continue the border crisis on an industrial scale but make it more difficult for a future enforcement-minded president to fix. The bill does the following: Accepts and codifies crisis levels of daily illegal immigration; continues catch and release and weakens current law by narrowing the mandatory detention statute; codifies and expands mass parole abuse; and continues to encourage asylum fraud and accelerate work permits. Not only that, but the bill also provides numerous significant immigration reforms that are unrelated to border security, including more family and employment green cards for no apparent reason, as well as allowing approximately 250,000 adult children of guest workers who replaced American workers to stay and work in the U.S.

“Lastly, even though the Senate bill includes $7.6 billion for ICE, an agency being quietly abolished from within, the amounts provided cannot be trusted. The Biden Administration has been given billions of dollars in annual appropriations for ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO), yet the agency is not arresting, detaining, and removing illegal aliens in accordance with the law. It is more likely that this money would be used to fund the processing and transportation of illegal aliens, not only putting us in the same situation we’re in but making it worse. Also, while the supplemental contains a moderate detention bed increase that meets the Trump Administration’s highest total, there is no requirement for the beds to be filled. The same concern applies to Alternatives to Detention (ATD), as the funding increase is not explicitly provided for Intensive Supervision Appearance Program (ISAP), the most effective electronic monitoring program, which is not being used on a proper scale.

“So here we are. Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas’ response to being impeached is to lash out and threaten to harm American communities with the release of thousands of criminal aliens. Mayorkas and the White House are warning Congress and the American people that their lives will be put in danger if Congress doesn’t approve a supplemental that would codify the crisis under the guise of ending it. This is extortion, plain and simple.”