CBP Chief Defends Releasing Illegal Migrants into U.S. Without Court Dates

Migrants are being caught and released into the United States without court dates, the acting commissioner of the U.S Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency admitted Wednesday.

His comments came during a hearing held by the House Appropriations Subcommittee on National Security.

Migrants are supposed to get a “Notice to Appear” (NTA) in a U.S. court, Rep. John Rutherford (R-FL) told the CBP chief.

So “the Notice to Appear … [has become] a Notice to Disappear. Disappear into the interior of this country,” the Republican congressman added.

Migrant families caught trying to cross illegally at the Rio Grande Valley (RGV) sector in Texas are released into the country with only a Notice to Report (NTR) to an immigration office, Miller testified.

Rather than providing a court date, the NTR orders the migrants to report to an Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency office within 60 days, Miller told lawmakers.

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Miller revealed that migrants released into U.S. communities with NTAs are not getting court dates either.

Asked by Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-CA), the House panel’s chairwoman, to comment on “the rationale for issuing” NTR orders, Miller said in responding:

The Notice to Report process cuts the paperwork in half, but let me clear up some misconceptions about the Notice to Reports. Agents perform the same national security and border security checks they do as they would with a Notice to Appear [NTA]. They will collect biometrics, and facial recognition [data] … [and] the migrants are also given a [document] which tells them they must report to an ICE location within 60 days. This is essentially the same process that we perform during the NTA. Same checks, collecting the same biographic and biometric information.

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“This is not a decision we made lightly, but it was necessary … given the capacity in our facilities and the need to decompress our facilities to keep not only the folks in our custody safe but to keep our agents and officers safe,” Miller added, referring to issuing NTRs.

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