The White House defended the Department of Homeland Security providing free cellphones to migrants released into the community while their immigration proceedings are pending.
The phones are one of “three unique forms of technology” the DHS uses to monitor paroled migrants, according to press secretary Jen Psaki.
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“When the participant has a check-in call, their voice is compared to the voiceprint,” she told reporters on Wednesday.
Other monitoring is conducted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement once immigrants leave Border Patrol facilitates through a program called SmartLink that relies on smartphone or tablet facial matching to confirm a migrant’s identity, as well as global positioning systems, which track their location and movement via satellites and ankle bracelets, according to Psaki.
Psaki dismissed concerns migrants are discarding the phones, saying the administration was focused on compliance to ensure they participated “in hearings to determine whether or not they will be able to stay.”
“Nearly 80% of noncitizens released at the border from DHS custody under prosecutorial discretion have either received a notice to appear or are still within their window to report,” she said. “The vast, vast majority of people are appearing, and … we have these monitors and monitoring systems in order to do that effectively.”
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Missouri Republican Sen. Josh Hawley sent a letter to the DHS secretary earlier on Wednesday for more information regarding the phones despite their deployment starting in January.
