Hundreds of Thousands More Aliens Go Missing Under ‘Alternatives to Detention’ While ICE Deportations Plummet
January 06, 2023
In a stunning admission, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) says it has “no records” for 377,980 illegal aliens enrolled in its “Alternatives to Detention” (ATD) program.
But maybe that’s not such a surprise. Whether it’s bureaucratic bungling or by design, this security lapse is consistent for an agency whose deportation numbers are in free fall.
The latest ATD embarrassment surfaced after Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) filed a Freedom of Information Act request on aliens under ATD supervision from the start of fiscal year 2019 to August 2022.
“ICE’s response that they could no longer find records on [illegal aliens] they had previously released came as a shock, particularly after they informed us recently that they had been misleading the public for several months by releasing extremely inaccurate ATD data,” said TRAC’s Austin Kocher.
https://www.fairus.org/blog/2023/01/06/hundreds-thousands-more-aliens-go-missing-under-alternatives-detention-while-ice
