We are three years into President Joe Biden‘s administration, and the crisis caused by Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is only getting worse. It feels like there is no end in sight.
Under Biden and Mayorkas, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers with whom I served will only be allowed to deport 125,000 illegal immigrants in fiscal 2025 — less than half of the illegal immigrants deported in fiscal 2019 under President Donald Trump.
This is dangerous and in defiance of the law.
While this is occurring, thousands of ICE detention beds (a critical removal resource funded by America’s taxpayers) remain empty. Equally as bad, ICE could be tracking illegal immigrants with GPS monitoring, but it is refusing to do so on the proper scale.
So, during a record wave of illegal immigration and crime, Mayorkas is asking Congress to fund only 34,000 ICE detention beds next year as his own ICE director makes the rounds on Capitol Hill saying that 50,000 detention beds are necessary. The detention bed total requested by Mayorkas is also 7,500 fewer than the amount that is currently, and inadequately, funded by Congress. Does that sound like a man prioritizing the security of our homeland or a man bending to the wishes of radical open-border activists?
The Biden administration’s refusal to use every available detention bed and keep criminals from being set free into our communities has had tragic results.
You’ve likely seen the recent headlines claiming that a “lack of detention space” was the reason the Biden administration released Jose Antonio Ibarra, Laken Riley’s alleged killer, into our country.
It turns out this was a lie.
In the month Ibarra was released at the border, there were roughly 25,000 illegal immigrants in detention with thousands of beds empty, meaning that DHS could have detained (and later deported) Ibarra. If Biden had done this, Riley would be alive today. Instead, he was released, joining millions of illegal immigrants who freely roam American communities and later commit crimes against our fellow citizens.
The Biden administration’s efforts to dismantle detention and allow illegal immigrants to roam free also extend to other programs, such as the Alternatives to Detention. It was recently reported that Mohammad Kharwin, an Afghan national with terrorist ties, was quickly processed and then removed from the Intensive Supervision Appearance Program after just over two weeks.
When Kharwin’s enrollment in ISAP, the original ATD program with GPS tracking, was terminated in March 2024, he was released onto the swelling non-detained docket of illegal immigrants (nearing 7 million, many whose whereabouts are unknown).
Eleven months later, in February of this year, Kharwin was added to the FBI terrorist watch list after new “concerning” information was obtained. ICE was notified and then, fortunately, was able to arrest him in San Antonio. He was held in detention until his court hearing two weeks ago, when a federal immigration judge ordered that he be released on bond despite ICE prosecutors arguing he was a flight risk. He was then released on bond for a brief period, but he is now back in federal custody, according to news reports.
Quickly releasing an Afghan national onto the unsupervised, non-detained docket after about two weeks on ISAP is indefensible, but it tracks with an alarming number of quick program terminations under the Biden administration.
The fact is that GPS monitoring significantly increases the likelihood that illegal immigrants will comply with their immigration proceedings. Those enrolled under ISAP have a 98.6% compliance rate for attending immigration hearings and are easier to locate if they abscond.
Having served as a former ICE field office director, I can attest to this.
Unfortunately, the Biden administration has failed to use the program efficiently or correctly, instead acting upon the wishes of “Abolish ICE” groups who not only oppose custodial detention but call any monitoring of illegal immigrants a “digital prison.” This explains why use of the program has decreased by 37%. As of late February, nearly 185,000 illegal immigrants are being monitored on ATD, a drop from 293,000 enrolled at the same time in 2023.
Biden’s goal is to scrap ISAP entirely and turn ATD into social services paid by you, the taxpayer, to assist illegal immigrants as they arrive. This is already happening through the Young Adult Case Management Program and the Case Management Pilot Program, programs that House Republicans have unsuccessfully sought to terminate.
Unlike its use (or lack thereof) under the current administration, ISAP can serve as vital GPS monitoring of illegal immigrants so we can carry out large-scale deportations like those planned by President Donald Trump.
With Biden and Mayorkas quietly continuing to abolish ICE and core agency functions from within, this open-border madness will continue — at least for now.
Fortunately, come November, the public will have a clear choice on the ballot: catch and release or detain and deport.
It should be an easy answer.
John Fabbricatore is a former ICE field office director who serves on the National Immigration Center for Enforcement and is running for Congress in Colorado.
