The chief of the Border Patrol authorized his agents to use parole to catch and release illegal immigrants caught in the border surge, saying the numbers are so high that his agency cannot be expected to process everyone correctly.
Chief Raul Ortiz, in a memo Wednesday, said parole will be allowed if the Border Patrol is averaging more than 7,000 arrests a day. The agency is well above that level already, and the numbers will probably go even higher by Friday, when the government will lose its Title 42 power to expel some migrants.
“Because BP personnel and resources are finite, BP must consider whether processing personnel and resources are necessary to process other noncitizens in BP custody or accomplish enforcement actions that are immediately critical to border security for the greater public benefit,” Chief Ortiz wrote. “If so, the individual may be considered for Parole with Conditions.”
Those admitted will be granted an initial 60-day stay, after which they are supposed to connect with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the main deportation agency, to collect an immigration court summons known as a Notice to Appear.
Chief Ortiz’s memo does not hazard a guess at how many people will be paroled, though ICE officers were bracing for the worst.
They said they still haven’t dug out from the notice-to-report scandal of 2021, when Border Patrol agents were ordered to release migrants without an immigration court summons and without any firm way of tracking them.
Migrants were supposed to check in with ICE offices when they got to their destinations, but tens of thousands refused. ICE then began several operations to try to track them down in communities, diverting officers from their regular duties, but met with limited success.
“Now there will be many more,” said one Homeland Security source.
Chief Ortiz insisted each parole decision will be made on a case-by-case basis, in keeping with the requirements under the law.
The law also limits parole to instances of urgent humanitarian need or significant public benefit. Traditionally that meant cases such as where someone needed medical care only available in the U.S. or was needed to help a law enforcement case.
Chief Ortiz said the benefit in this case is that otherwise his short-term holding cells would become too dirty or unsafe because of overcrowding.
“As short-term holding conditions become more crowded, USBP faces increasing challenges regarding maintenance of sanitation, medical needs and mental health of noncitizens, among other short-term custody standard considerations,” the chief wrote.
He said the ability to have agents focus on other duties rather than have to babysit an overwhelming number of migrants is a public benefit.
Some analysts say the Biden administration has created those conditions by not working harder to deter the flow of people. That creates a circular logic where the justification for parole is based on the fact that parole invites more people to come in the first place.
The Biden administration has already made expansive use of its parole power for everything from the border surge to admitting Ukrainians and Afghans.
Since Oct. 1, 2021, Homeland Security has used parole to grant 1.5 million migrants space in the U.S.
That’s roughly the population of Philadelphia or San Diego.
Chief Ortiz, in his new memo, did order agents to issue a parole only after a migrant has given a valid address for where he or she plans to end up once released.
In the past, agents were releasing migrants who gave addresses such as a Catholic Charities location, causing headaches for the charity and the government alike when ICE officers tried to track someone down.
Chief Ortiz said people put into parole should still go through vetting, and agents must decide if they are a national security threat or public safety risk. If so, they should not be released.
ICE’s acting director, in testimony to Congress last month, admitted the government often doesn’t have access to records in the migrants’ home countries, so the checks are only as good as what agents can see.
