Biden-era policy blamed as ICE makes just 8 arrests among 3 million suspected visa overstayers

How many suspected visa overstayers did Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrest? Just eight, the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general said.

Customs and Border Protection flagged 3,145,375 people from fiscal 2021 to 2024 who were thought to have stayed past their visa expirations. ICE deemed 21,885 of them, or less than 1%, viable priority cases. It carried out fewer than 500 investigations, the inspector general said.

The audit blamed a 2021 policy that ordered ICE to pass on most investigations unless a case involved a “national security” or “public safety” threat. ICE lacked resources and struggled to find visitors at the addresses they gave, the audit said.

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“As a result, foreign nationals who potentially posed threats to the United States remained at large despite their illegal status,” the audit found.

In one case, a Jamaican man arrived on a business-tourism visa in June 2021, stayed past its December 2021 expiration and pleaded guilty to being a criminal in possession of a weapon. ICE can’t find him now, the audit said.

ICE said it dropped the Biden guidance and now considers anyone in the country beyond their legal time a candidate for investigation and deportation.

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said the findings showed the Biden administration knowingly ignored thousands of cases it had labeled priorities. Mr. Mullin called the degree of its “dereliction of duty” “staggering and enraging.”

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• Biden’s DHS gave free pass to most illegal immigrants who overstayed visas: Audit

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