The Washington Times is reporting that the Biden administration plans to send out teams of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to locate and arrest recent border-crossing aliens who absconded after being released from custody.
Perusing the article, several thoughts came immediately to mind:
First, the timing is suspicious. The president and vice president's ratings are abysmal and still sinking — at least in part because of their atrocious mishandling of immigration issues — and their party fears a thrashing at the midterm elections. Could this be an attempt to ameliorate the (accurate) public perception that the White House has zero interest in enforcing the nation's immigration laws?
Second, what a sad waste of taxpayer dollars. It's not that I oppose it. But if the administration had allowed the law to be enforced in a reasonably intelligent and competent manner, there wouldn't be so many absconders to begin with; they would have been held in custody for the pendency of their proceedings before an immigration judge. Better yet, many could have been expelled using expedited removal rules — the ones that the Biden administration is planning to roll back, even though they've never been fully implemented anyway.
Third, the administration may be hoping this operation will blunt, or at least distract from, the negative public reaction that's sure to occur when the expected overwhelming surge of aliens arrives thanks to Biden's lifting of the Title 42 rules now in place that have held back a huge number of illegal border-crossers.
Fourth, and last, how ironic that the administration has finally found a use for ICE. Its workforce is so demoralized by rules prohibiting them from doing their jobs that the Department of Homeland Security forced the installation of anti-suicide apps onto their government phones. An inside source told me that in one fair-sized field office of Enforcement and Removals Operations (ERO, a major division of ICE), there were exactly two — yes, two — apprehensions in the last month. This isn't because agents don't want to work; it's because they've been handcuffed by mandates from DHS that make getting the okay to pursue a case almost impossible. As a result, criminal aliens throughout the interior who should be ICE's first priority go free and DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas not only doesn't seem to care, but actively works to undermine ICE's efforts through his restrictive policies and tacit acceptance of sanctuary jurisdictions.
Prognosticating is risky business, but my guess on this operation, if/when it takes place, is that we'll see periodic press releases lauding ICE when groups of absconders are taken into custody, but the administration will be fooling itself — not the public — because notwithstanding a few arrests here and there, and whether or not stats are deleted or twisted in DHS reports, it's pretty clear that illegal immigration is completely out of control with the Biden White House in charge.