Key Points
- Illegal encounters at the southern border reached more than 115,000 in October.
- HHS Sec. Mayorkas released a memo outlining “protected areas” for migrant criminals.
- ICE and CBP can no longer go after suspected criminals near schoolyards, places of worship and more.
The crisis at the southern border may have fallen out of the nightly news cycle, but that doesn’t make it any less of a crisis. More than 115,000 illegal migrant encounters were logged by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection in October; 33,500 pounds of drugs were confiscated.
There are also COVID concerns. At a recent Senate committee hearing, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) asked HHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas “How many illegal immigrants have you released into the United States who were COVID-positive?” Mayorkas couldn’t answer.
Despite these concerns, the Biden administration has decided to make it more difficult for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to apprehend suspected criminal aliens. Sec. Mayorkas released a memo addressing “Guidelines for Enforcement Actions in or Near Protected Areas.”
“When we conduct an enforcement action – whether it is an arrest, search, service of a subpoena, or other action – we need to consider many factors, including the location in which we are conducting the action and its impact on other people and broader societal interests,” Mayorkas writes in the memo. “To the fullest extent possible, we should not take an enforcement action in or near a location that would restrain people’s access to essential services or engagement in essential activities.”
“Such a location is referred to as a ‘protected area.’”
Examples of “protected areas” include schools, medical facilities, places of worship, playgrounds, recreational centers, cemeteries, weddings, parades and more. Mayorkas specifies the list isn’t complete and urges caution: “We need to consider the fact that an enforcement action taken near – and not necessarily in – the protected area can have the same restraining impact on an individual’s access to the protected area itself.”
In other words, don’t arrest the bad guys.
The Center for Immigration Studies asks an obvious question: “How can officers surveil a location’s pedestrian patterns to determine if it’s a protected area when guidelines say surveillance in protected areas is prohibited? This sloppy, poorly drafted policy will necessarily get officers into trouble simply for trying to do their jobs.”
“The result is that many officers won’t take the risk of being reprimanded by Biden’s political appointees and public safety will be harmed.”
And here’s another obvious question: once criminals know that ICE and CBP can’t touch them in these “protected areas,” won’t they be drawn to these areas? Won’t they easily evade arrest by sticking to the confines of these very large safe zones?
Yes and yes.
