Outgoing ICE Director says Biden “absolutely” should have acted sooner to tighten border
Story by Julia Ainsley • 1h
In an exit interview with NBC News, current acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director P.J. Lechleitner said President Joe Biden should “absolutely” have acted sooner to tighten border security to reduce the flow of migrants into the U.S.
Lechleitner, who became acting director in July 2023, said the number of incoming migrants meant ICE had to give staff to Customs and Border Protection to help them, leaving ICE unable “to do our own core mission adequately.” He also said he was not alone in feeling Biden should have moved faster.
“I think the career people in DHS would have liked that,” he said. “And all of us in DHS, quite frankly, I don’t know if anybody in DHS wouldn’t have wanted that earlier.”
Lechleitner was referring to executive action Biden took this June to restrict immigrants who crossed the border illegally from claiming asylum. By September, the monthly total of illegal border crossings had dropped to 54,000, the lowest since Biden took office. The drop brought the numbers in line with pre-pandemic Trump levels from the fall of 2019. And the numbers have continued to fall, with only 46,000 migrants crossing illegally in November.
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