Watchdog Investigates How Many Migrants Go Missing–This Is What They Found

NBC News stated that the internal investigator for the Department of Homeland Security said that the department lost track of 177,000 immigrants throughout a 17-month stretch starting in 2021 and finishing in 2022.

According to NBC News, the DHS’s capacity to monitor immigrants once they are released into the country is restricted, according to a recent study from the Office of Inspector General of the DHS.

From March 2021 to August 2022, more than a million refugees were set free, but 177,000 of their address records either remained blank or listed places that didn’t exist or weren’t homes, the news network said.

“There were restaurants in Maryland, bus stations in Georgia, car dealerships in New Jersey, and churches in Illinois that were used more than fifty times throughout a six-month period,” NBC News continued.

The news network has more:

“Without an actual address, DHS couldn’t find out where migrants were or let them know about their ongoing asylum cases and court dates. If they don’t make a claim for asylum with immigration judges within a year of arriving, they might miss the chance to get legal residency and permission to work.”

“The report from the inspector general stated that illegal immigrants can’t be found and sent back to their home countries without valid addresses.”

“ICE needs to be able to track down immigrants in order to enforce immigration laws, such as apprehending or expelling people who pose a risk to national security,” the study stated, as reported by NBC News. “The significant proportion of addresses on file that are missing, incorrect for delivery, or duplicate addresses suggests that DHS might not be able to track down migrants when they are released into the country.”

The news network said that both Democratic as well as Republican administrations have let migrants directly into the U.S. before their immigration court dates because immigration detention centers were too full and there were rules against keeping children in detention.

According to news outlet NBC, the Biden administration started releasing migrants in March 2021 with no court dates but rather with notices requiring them to report to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement office within a period of sixty days. The inspector general’s inquiry also revealed that over 25,000 of the nearly 100,000 migrants let go with notices to report to ICE had no addresses in their records.

According to a previous assessment by the inspector general, 29% of migrants who were released with a notice requiring them to report to ICE failed to do so within the mandated 60-day time frame, the news network said.