WTE: ICE is not the problem but can be part of the solution

The Office of Inspector General (OIG) of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) recently released a report titled: “Management Alert – DHS Needs to Address Dangerous Overcrowding and Prolonged Detention of Children and Adults in the Rio Grande Valley.” It’s an excellent source of real information to cut through much huffing and puffing.

Notice, first, that the problems are limited to the Rio Grande Valley, a stretch of America’s southern border beginning in El Paso, Texas and following the river eastward. The area in question includes five holding facilities and two border crossings operated by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP).

These facilities are not intended for extended stay. They are only processing points for people who have been apprehended crossing the border illegally. At the facility, agents are charged to examine each situation and send the individual or the family to the appropriate longer-term facility.

Adults are transferred within the DHS to facilities operated by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Unaccompanied minors are transferred out of DHS to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Family units are vetted to catch any adult sex traffickers posing as parents.

CBP has developed a set of internal standards that call for people to be transferred out of holding facilities within 72 hours. These standards are not being met. In addition, local fire marshals have assigned occupancy limits to the facilities, limits that are being exceeded. The OIG report identifies two causes for these twin failures.

First, there has been an explosion of illegal border crossings in the Rio Grande valley. From October 2017 to May 2018 there were just shy of 100,000 arrests for illegal crossings. The same period a year later catalogued over 223,000.

The situation becomes even more dire when the numbers are broken down. Of the 124-percent increase in total arrests, single adults illegally crossing the border only increased by 32 percent while unaccompanied children increased by 62 percent--from 14,822 to 23,944. But the real explosion came in family units. It went from 36,773 in 2018 to 135, 812 in 2019—nearly a fourfold increase.

While these numbers alone are enough to overwhelm the system, CBP is also hampered by a second problem. Even if it is ready to transfer people out of its facilities within the 72-hour time frame, “both ICE and HHS are operating at or above capacity …[causing] increasing instances of prolonged detention in [CBP] facilities,” according to the memo.

Nationwide, ICE is funded to supply 42,000 beds for people who are in various stages of the enforcement process. In actuality, ICE is providing 54,000 beds (28 percent over capacity). Still there are simply not enough available beds to relieve the pressure on the CBP facilities in the Rio Grande valley.

Until Congress acts to change the law, there are only two legal options to address the humanitarian crisis at our southern border. Either the flood of illegal crossings needs to be slowed, or ICE must build more facilities to house people who enter the system. Realistically, the solution will likely involve both.

Since CBP is flying people to ICE facilities around the nation, a proposed ICE facility near Evanston may relieve some of the overcrowding. But unless the explosion of illegal crossings also is slowed, the problem would likely return.

Before the OIG made its report public, the DHS wrote a formal response that outlined its impossible situation. Noting the emergency measures it is taking to expand housing capacity, it informed the Inspector General of an “acute and worsening crisis” at the southern border.

Despite this information, the OIG’s final report only fulfilled half of its appointed duty. The OIG is charged to “conduct inspections and recommend policies.” The memo detailed the problem but offered no policy recommendations.

Not only is the OIG derelict in this duty, practically everyone else is, as well. Anyone who stands in the way of building barriers to illegal immigration while simultaneously opposing the construction of new ICE facilities is contributing to the unacceptable conditions in the Rio Grande Valley. They are putting real people in a vise.

CBP is not the villain. Neither is ICE or the HHS. All three agencies are being scapegoated by the people who are deliberately causing the humanitarian crisis at our southern border. This is reprehensible.

Many innocent people from Central and South America are being lured to the border by false promises and then squeezed in a vise by bad actors on both sides of the border.

It’s time for people of good will to demand that congress solve the problem. Representatives who grandstand while blocking every solution should be sent packing. American citizens deserve better; so do those who aspire to be.