DHS Loses Track of Illegal Immigrants it Releases in U.S., Many Give Fake Address

Not only has illegal immigration exploded under the Biden administration, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) fails to track migrants it is supposed to monitor after releasing them in the U.S. Incredibly, the agency created after 9/11 to prevent another terrorist attack is not making much of an effort to find the missing foreigners who in thousands of cases were freed despite not providing the agency with a valid domestic address or after furnishing a bogus location including car dealerships, bus stations, restaurants or churches.

Between March 2021 and August 2022, DHS lost track of more than 177,000 migrants inside the country, according to a scathing report issued recently by the DHS Office of Inspector General. The watchdog found that 80% of addresses provided to the U.S. Border Patrol (USBP) by migrants were recorded at least two times and 54,000 were simply left blank. More than 780 addresses were used over 20 times and seven were recorded by federal officials over 500 times, apparently without raising any red flags. Some of the addresses were charities or federal government agencies. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) also got trashed in the report for failing to always validate migrant addresses prior to releasing them into communities throughout the United States.

In all, DHS released more than a million migrant individuals and families into the U.S. during the recent 18-month period examined in the probe. Investigators stress in the report that it is critical to properly track the individuals. “ICE must be able to locate migrants to enforce immigration laws, including to arrest or remove individuals who are considered potential threats to national security,” the IG writes in the report, which has several redactions. “The notable percentage of missing, invalid for delivery, or duplicate addresses on file means DHS may not be able to locate migrants following their release into the United States,” the report continues. “As the Department continues to apprehend and release tens of thousands of migrants each month, valid post-release addresses are essential.”

DHS releases more than 60,000 illegal immigrants into the U.S. every month, according to the agency watchdog, and the figure will probably grow. “In addition to migrants not providing U.S. release addresses, DHS faced several challenges hindering its ability to record and validate migrant addresses as required,” the probe found. “USBP did not accurately and effectively capture valid addresses, in part due to the large number of migrants apprehended, as well as its limited coordination with ICE and its limited authority to administer compliance with address requirements.” The document further explains that “ICE also did not have adequate resources to validate and analyze migrants’ post-release addresses.” As an example, the IG offers that ICE deportation officers at one field office were responsible for 35,000 migrant cases post-release, averaging to about three minutes of staff time per case annually.

It has been widely reported that when it comes to the famously porous southwest border DHS has not done a very good job of fulfilling its mission. What many Americans may not know is that, in the last few years, the agency has made the problem even worse by dispersing hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants throughout the U.S. under a Biden administration program that issues migrants a Notice to Report (NTR) and trusts them to show up for hearings. Not surprisingly, many vanish, and the government tries to keep the stats from the public. Last year a Wisconsin senator obtained startling DHS figures showing that, during a five-month period, the Biden administration relocated 273,396 illegal immigrants throughout the United States and issued north of 100,000 NTRs to an ICE field office within 60 days. More than 50,000 illegal aliens failed to show up for their hearing with federal authorities by ignoring the government issued NTR that has become the laughingstock of the nation’s immigration system.