Home Todd Bensman 'Catch and Release' Resumes on Texas Border in the Face of Rising Migrant Numbers
'Catch and Release' Resumes on Texas Border in the Face of Rising Migrant Numbers
'They're filling bus after bus.'
By Todd Bensman on February 3, 2021
AUSTIN, Texas — Hundreds of Haitian migrants who are crossing the Rio Grande border in the normally staid Del Rio sector of Texas are enjoying the first return to "catch-and-release" policies since President Donald Trump's administration all but eliminated them. U.S. Border Patrol and ICE are allowing hundreds of Haitians and other migrant nationalities who cross in the Del Rio region to avoid detention or quick return to Mexico; instead they are given Notices to Appear in immigration court at some point in the future and allowed to board Greyhound buses for other parts of the United States, according to federal sources and the head of a migrant-assistance agency helping the migrants.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials in the region wouldn't confirm or deny that migrants are benefitting from catch-and-release again. Catch-and-release was a practice, in response to an overwhelming number of migrants causing the breakdown of normal border control systems, that rewarded illegal crossers who claimed to fear returning to their home countries with long-term presence inside the United States for nearly one million Central Americans in 2019.
It's unclear how many migrants have benefitted from the reintroduction of catch-and-release in the Del Rio sector.
https://cis.org/Bensman/Catch-and-Release-Resumes-Texas-Border-Face-Rising-Migrant-Numbers
