Trump Decries Catch and Release While Expanding Release of Illegal Aliens

Trump declares 'emergency' to build wall, Democrats cry foul
AFP

During a press conference in the White House Rose Garden on Friday morning, President Trump decried the Catch and Release program while a Republican-Democrat spending bill he is expected to sign will expand the release of illegal aliens and border crossers into the United States.

“We have a real problem, we have Catch and Release,” Trump said in the Rose Garden. “You catch a criminal and you have to release him.”

The bipartisan spending package Trump will sign, as Breitbart News has reported, greatly expands the Catch and Release of border crossers and illegal aliens, codifying into law that border crossers be bused into the interior of the U.S. where they are released with the promise that they are monitored.

Under the spending bill, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency will have reduced detention space to detain border crossers and illegal aliens. The plan also expands what is known as “Alternatives to Detention” (ATD) programs, which gives additional funding for federal immigration officials to release border crossers and illegal aliens into the country.

About 99 percent of border crossers and illegal aliens who are put into ATD programs and released into the interior of the U.S. are never deported.

One of the most often used components of the ATDs is illegal aliens being released into the U.S. with ankle monitors on. DHS officials, though, have previously told Breitbart News the monitors are extremely ineffective.

“According to ICE, about a third of the people who are put on ATD cut off their monitor right away,” Center for Immigration Studies Director of Policy Jessica Vaughan told Breitbart News. “There are stories … one, in particular, a government contractor that operates most of the ATD programs for ICE, they used to go to the Phoenix bus station and pick up all the monitors that were found in the men’s bathroom trash can from people cutting them off.”

While expanding Catch and Release, the spending bill provides about $1.3 billion for 55 miles of a border wall, far less than the $5.7 billion that Trump requested and an amnesty pipeline for all illegal aliens who have any connection to an Unaccompanied Alien Child (UAC).

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.

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