DEL RIO, Texas — More than 10,000 migrants who were camped under a bridge have been processed by Border Patrol agents since last Saturday as the Biden administration moves to clear out the site, the Washington Examiner has learned.
As of 5 p.m. local time Friday, 10,000 people who waded across the Rio Grande from Acuna, Mexico, to Del Rio have had their information entered into Border Patrol’s tracking system over the past seven days, according to data reviewed by the Washington Examiner on Friday evening.
More than 15,000 were on-site under the bridge Saturday. Several thousand more are in the process of being transported hundreds of miles across the state to be processed at Border Patrol facilities that have space and agents available, including Tucson, Arizona, and El Paso, Texas. They are not included in the 10,000 because they have not yet been interviewed or booked into the tracking system.
The career Department of Homeland Security official who provided the data said 9,000 of the 10,000 have been identified as having been born in Haiti, but many have not lived in the island nation for as much as a decade. Some 2,276 Haitians have been sent back to Haiti under Title 42, a public health protocol that allows the Border Patrol to expel anyone who illegally crosses the border immediately, the source said.
The Department of Homeland Security “has conducted 17 expulsion flights to Haiti with approximately 2,000 individuals” as of Friday, and “those who are not expelled under Title 42 are placed in immigration removal proceedings,” Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said during a White House press conference Friday afternoon.
However, leaked DHS documents for some migrants who had been processed state that “subjects are currently not under removal proceedings” because Immigration and Customs Enforcement “requested and denied (due to humanitarian reasons).” As a result, subjects were processed for Notice to Report and released.
Of the 9,000 Haitian migrants processed over the past week, 6,615 have been released into the United States and 160 have been served papers ordering they be sent back to their country of origin. The difference in released and expelled migrants is due to some migrants’ statuses not yet being updated in government tracking systems.
Migrants released from federal custody are normally given a document directing them to appear in immigration court. But sources said these migrants are being pushed out of Border Patrol stations and processing centers with notices to report, which instruct them to self-report to an ICE office in the coming weeks. There is no legal requirement to show up, and changes that President Joe Biden made to immigration policy earlier this year forbid ICE officers from going into the community and arresting people who are not a significant public safety threat.
However, the same official shared anecdotal information that indicates the notices to report to ICE are compelling migrants to show up. At ICE’s San Francisco office, migrants were lined up around the building Friday morning.
Migrants who do report to ICE receive an Alien Registration Number, which allows them to remain in the country through their court hearing date. Migrants need an alien number to apply for work, which could provide incentive to show at ICE, the official said. By showing up, migrants submit to proceedings in which a federal immigration judge will decide whether they can stay, though there is a backlog of over 1 million cases.
Migrants seeking asylum can start that process at any time, though most will claim they have a “credible fear” of being returned to their home country at the time a judge orders a person be returned.
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As of 10 a.m. local time Friday, the Border Patrol had 16,400 people in its custody nationwide. That does not include people in transit at that moment, estimated to be 2,000 to 3,000. Of the 16,400, 12,000 are from countries other than Mexico.
