The Department of Homeland Security is asking for employees to volunteer at the southern border as the department struggles to deal with “large numbers” of migrants and prepares for an expected surge of illegal crossings in the spring and summer.
In a Wednesday email by Deputy Secretary John Tien, Homeland Security requested employees join the DHS Volunteer Force, more than a year after it was activated in response to last year’s migrant surge. The volunteer force was also employed to address the Afghan evacuee resettlement operation and the 2019 border crisis. According to Tien’s email, over 1,400 employees have volunteered.
“Once again, we need to tap into our Department’s greatest resource: the skills of our talented and diverse workforce. Today, I am asking you to consider stepping forward to support the DHS Volunteer Force,” the email reads.
It adds: “[Customs and Border Protection] continues to encounter large numbers of individuals at the Southwest Border. We are seeking your help to support our CBP frontline workforce.”
According to the email, the department is looking for volunteers in two areas: general support and data entry (with Spanish language skills).
One border patrol source said there is a “frantic sense of urgency” as officials strive to set up processing capabilities at the southern and northern borders.
“We are limiting agents in the field just to have more processing,” the source stated.
The email, first reported by Axios, also described officials as bracing for a surge of over 170,000 migrants if the administration ends Title 42, a public health order that had been implemented by the Trump administration at the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak to allow for rapid removal of migrants at the border.
Fox News reports:
Activists and top Democrats have pushed for the Biden administration to end the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) order, but with February’s migrant encounters up more than 60% over last year, it has raised fears of a migrant surge in the spring and summer that could outpace 2021’s mammoth surge. More than half of the 164,973 migrants encountered in February were expelled under Title 42.
Per Axios, part of the preparations reportedly include a new Southwest Border Coordination Center, a “war room” to coordinate the response to the brewing crisis that officials are fearing could be a “mass migration event.”
The outlet wrote that the response could include additional personnel, aircraft from the U.S. Marshals Service for transporting migrants to other parts of the border, buses from the Bureau of Prisons, and new soft-sided facilities to hold thousands of migrants.
“Of course the administration is doing our due diligence to prepare for potential changes at the border. That is good government in action,” White House spokesperson Vedant Patel told Fox News.
“As always is the case this Administration is working every day to restore order, fairness, and humanity to our immigration system and bring it into the 21st century,” Patel said.
A Washington Times report found that under Biden, the number of criminal illegal aliens who are going unarrested and not deported has increased significantly.
Figures published by the Washington Times’ Stephen Dinan showed that the federal government under Biden arrested 48 percent fewer convicted criminal illegal aliens, conducted 63 percent fewer deportations for convicted criminal illegal aliens, and issued 46 percent fewer requests for ICE agents to take custody of criminal illegal aliens in Fiscal Year 2021.
“As I’ve warned for months now, Biden is mass freeing criminal illegal aliens from our nation’s prisons and jails and then releasing them into our neighborhoods, near our schools and offices, and all across our nation. A truly sinister policy,” Stephen Miller of America First Legal wrote in a statement.
According to the numbers, 36,619 convicted criminal illegal aliens were arrested by ICE agents in Fiscal Year 2021, and less than 40,000 convicted criminal illegal aliens were deported.
By comparison, in 2019, more than 92,000 convicted criminal illegal aliens were arrested by ICE agents and more than 150,000 convicted criminal illegal aliens were deported.
These numbers were previously unreleased. A source inside ICE said agency officials have had this data for months but decided against publishing it. This information was not found in ICE’s annual report, which came out earlier this week.
