President Biden’s admin released over 160,000 migrants into US since March, documents show

In excess of 160,000 migrants have been released into the United States by the Biden administration since March, a leaked document revealed on Wednesday. Roughly 32,000 of those migrants were released into the interior on parole, which would allow them to legally apply for work permits, according to data obtained by Fox. 

The documents surfaced shortly after the Biden administration ramped up its deportation of migrants under health order Title 42, which was invoked by the Trump administration to allow any border agent to turn asylum-seekers away immediately regardless of status. Since August 6 alone the government has released more than 70,000 undocumented people into the US, according to the document. Of them 31,977 were given the temporary legal status and work permissions afforded by the government’s broad use of its parole authority. 

According to federal law, parole authority should only be used for ‘urgent humanitarian purposes’ such as urgent medical or family needs. It can also be used for ‘significant public benefit,’ like if police need migrants to serve as witnesses to judicial proceedings. Ex-Border Patrol Chief Rodney Scott, who held the role under Joe Biden until late June, said the Biden administration was vastly over-using its parole authority. 

“As a field chief, I don’t believe I ever approved more than 5 or 10 paroles in a year,” Scott told Fox. “When I did, I ensured that the alien was monitored continuously and was detained or removed as soon as the circumstances allowed.” He explained, “By law and regulation a parole shall only be granted on a case-by-case basis and only for significant humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit. Neither of these appear to apply to the current situation.”

Additionally, a majority of those released from federal custody since March 20, 94,570 migrants, were given a Notice to Report (NTR). A Notice to Appear is typically the first step in the court system that leads to deportation. A 10-day window is usually the wait time between being served an NTA and the first court hearing date, but migrants can apply to extend the requirement, like if they are in ICE custody. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas was asked about the severe spike in people trying to claim asylum in the US in a Yahoo News interview on Tuesday. Mayorkas said it was due to an ‘accumulation of factors’.

“I think that pieces of the many different theories compiled together form a very compelling answer. The downturn in economies, the attendant rise in violence, the downturn in economies made more acute by reason of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the suppression of any humanitarian relief over the past number of years, and the pent-up thirst for relief among many different populations,” he said. “I think an accumulation of factors contributes to the rise in migration that we’ve seen.”