Some aliens, including legal immigrants who commit removable offenses, are released by the federal government into U.S. communities under the Intensive Supervision Appearance Program (ISAP) while awaiting a final disposition on their removal cases. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) now admits it no longer tracks some of the foreign national in the program who have been released into U.S. communities.
The program enrolls aliens, both legal and illegal, who are “at high risk of committing criminal acts, absconding, or violating the terms of their release, such as reporting requirements,” explained the inspector general (IG) for the DHS in an audit, originally released in February and later revised, on alternatives to detention administered by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency.
In its recently released Semiannual Report to the Congress, the DHS IG reports that ICE “no longer supervises some [ISAP] participants.’
Therefore, noted the DHS IG, ICE cannot definitively determine how many ISAP participants have absconded or committed crimes after being released.
Yet, according to the DHS IG, ICE, which is charged with detaining illegal aliens and legal immigrants who commit deportable offenses while they are processed for deportation and await the final disposition of their removal cases, is no longer supervising some of the aliens it decides to release under its intensive supervision program.
“We determined ICE has changed how it uses the Intensive Supervision Appearance Program and no longer supervises some participants throughout their immigration proceedings,” reveals the DHS IG in its report to Congress, citing findings of an audit it released in February that was later revised.
“As a result, ICE cannot definitively determine whether the program has reduced the rate at which aliens who were once in the program, but who are no longer participating, have absconded or been arrested for criminal acts,” it adds.
The DHS IG did not elaborate on which participants are no longer being supervised or how many there are.
Moreover, the DHS IG also found that ICE does not re-arrest all ISAP participants who violate the conditions of their release.
“ICE instructed field offices to consider re-detaining noncompliant Supervision Appearance Program participants, but most field offices do not have sufficient funding for detention bed space to accommodate all noncompliant participants,” states the auditor.
The DHS IG also revealed that the Risk Classification Assessment, developed to assist ICE’s release and custody classification decisions, “is time consuming, resource intensive, and not effective in determining which aliens to release or under what conditions.”
In the February audit, the DHS IG revealed that an estimated 5,000 ISAP participants were either arrested for committing crimes or absconded over a three year period ending in 2012.
ISAP provides a contracted alternative to detention for aliens arrested by ICE across the country.
The intent of the program “is to increase compliance with release conditions, appearances in immigration court for removal hearings, and final removal orders that immigration courts may issue,” explained the inspector general.
“Under the program, ICE supervises aliens it has released from detention, and monitors them electronically,” it added “As a condition of release, ICE requires aliens to appear in immigration court for removal proceedings and comply with removal orders from the United States.”
A government contractor is hired to electronically monitor the participants and manage their cases using either GPS ankle bracelets or voice recognition software for telephone-based reporting.
In her new book, Coulter asks, “Why would any country import other countries’ criminals? What could possibly be on the plus side of the ledger, with ‘criminal’ on the minus side? Since the United Nations isn’t yet demanding that America allow everyone in the world to immigrate here, couldn’t we at least discriminate on the basis of felon vs. non-felon?”
ICE is a component of DHS.
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