https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/biden-gives-free-phones-to-illegal-immigrants-hell-bent-on-doing-away-with-detention/ar-AAWPsqM?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=ab03ff0c29bc4b599f9e37886e933960
FOX News
Biden gives 'free' phones to illegal immigrants, hell-bent on doing away with detention
Opinion by Tom Homan - 4h ago
When I first heard that the Biden administration was giving free smartphones to illegal aliens who recently crossed the border, I was incensed. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I instantly knew why, and that is because the administration doesn't want to detain them.
The open borders advocates have access to the same data I do that can be found within the 2020 Department of Homeland Security Enforcement Lifecycle Report. They know that if aliens are detained and receive a final order of removal from an immigration judge, the aliens will be removed 98 percent of the time.
The same report also shows that unless a deportable alien is fully detained, 85 percent will not be removed from the U.S. Only 6 percent of family groups leave as ordered and about 3 percent of Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC) leave as ordered. And let’s remember, 72 percent of UACs are of the age 15-17.
I have said for years that detention is a vital tool to ensure each alien gets due process and actually sees a judge and a court’s final decision can be carried out – whether it’s some sort of relief or an ordered departure. Many advocates and politicians insist these aliens have a right to claim asylum, and I agree. But if you believe that as a function of the legal system, then you also must stand by the decision of that legal process and respect it. Detention guarantees both.
However, this administration is attacking detention and Congress is limiting the funding for it. Under President Trump’s last full year there were more than 55,000 people in immigration detention and now there is about 25,000.
Next year's budget cuts funding from 34,000 beds to an even lower 25,000 beds. Many of the Democrat politicians want to end detention all together. Instead of detention, they want to focus on "alternatives to detention."
The most recent budget requests $527.1 million, an increase of $75 million, to expand those alternatives to detention monitoring programs. What ICE really needs is more technology, and they need to combine detention and all technology for effective enforcement to carry out its important mission.
We have done this in both Republican and Democrat administrations. We have never been able to get away from alternative programs and this administration is hell-bent of doing a lot more of it rather than detain.