As a result of the Biden administration’s reckless open border policies the federal agency charged with enforcing immigration laws inside the United States is getting slammed and discloses in its latest annual report that enforcement arrests nearly doubled in a year in which thousands of criminals were apprehended including dozens of known or suspected terrorists. In fiscal year 2023, which ended in September, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrested 170,590 illegal immigrants inside the country, almost half of them with criminal records. The criminal aliens had an average of four charges and convictions each, including more than 33,209 charges or convictions for assault, 7,520 for weapons offenses, 1,713 for homicide-related crimes and 1,615 for kidnapping. Removals also included 3,406 known or suspected gang members, 139 known or suspected terrorists, seven human rights violators, and 108 foreign fugitives wanted by their government for crimes including homicide, rape, terrorism, and kidnapping.
Among the most pervasive criminal offenses were Driving Under the Influence (DUI) and possession of serious drugs. Assault was also quite common among the undocumented perpetrators arrested last year and so were weapons offenses, sexual assault, and burglary. Thousands of the arrested migrants stole vehicles, were charged and/or convicted of fraudulent activities, robbery, forgery and property damage. More than 1,000 committed homicide and kidnapping and other types of threats not specified but considered serious enough by the government to be included in the year-end figures. “At-large arrests grew as broader migration trends contributed to an increase in unlawful entries to the Southwest border, driven by factors such as violence, food scarcity, severe poverty, unemployment, corruption, climate change, the ongoing impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, and dire economic conditions outside the United States,” the ICE report states.
The law enforcement agency with a staff of around 20,000 also conducted more than 200,000 domestic transfers of illegal immigrants last year and managed a record number of migrants under a controversial Biden administration catch-and-release policy known as Parole Plus Alternative to Detention (Parole+ATD) that freed over a million illegal aliens in the U.S. in a year, supposedly tracking them with technology and other tools. ICE Health Service Corps also spent a whopping $352 million to provide medical, dental, and mental health services for illegal immigrants detained in facilities throughout the nation, according to figures included in the document. “Those in ICE custody speak dozens of languages, including rare indigenous dialects, and the population includes individuals with a wide range of health statuses and unique physical and mental healthcare requirements — including some who receive comprehensive medical care for the first time after they are booked into detention,” the report says.
ICE’s Homeland Security Investigaions (HSI) division conducted an unprecedented number of investigations last year and executed 14,000 “noncitizen apprehensions,” seized an astounding 1.2 million pounds of narcotics, confiscated $5 million in assets and property, identified 1,806 victims of child exploitation, helped 731 victims of human trafficking, seized $949 million in criminally derived assets and more than $148 million in virtual currency from criminal elements. In cases involving drug cartels—officially known as Transnational Criminal Organizations (TCO)—that smuggle humans, narcotics, and money, HSI seized 69 firearms, 14,182 rounds of ammunition, 4,846 pounds of illicit drugs, and over $383,446 in currency. In one program alone, known as Operation Blue Lotus, HSI partnered with Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the frontline Homeland Security agency, to seize more than 8,200 pounds of fentanyl.
The distressing figures in the new ICE report are hardly surprising considering that 2023 was a record-breaker for illegal immigration with a ghastly 2.48 million foreigners entering the U.S. through the southern border, surpassing what was previously a historical high of 2.38 million in 2022. The last month of the fiscal year (September), federal agents encountered an unbelievable 269,735 illegal aliens constituting an all-time high for a single month and a substantial increase over August. The crisis is only worsening with time. This week a mainstream media outlet reports that there were 302,000 migrant encounters along the southwest border in December, marking the highest monthly total ever recorded.
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