The overrun border in the Rio Grande Valley has Customs and Border Patrol agents there considering releasing illegal border crossers into the United States without an asylum hearing date.
The situation has "become so dire," a source told Fox News, that Border Patrol "has no choice but to release people nearly immediately after apprehension because there is no space to hold people even to do necessary NTA paperwork."
Releasing the illegals into the country would put the onus on the immigrants to get an asylum hearing through the Immigration and Customs Enforcement or legal counsel.
A Notice to Appear (NTA) has been given by the CBP at the border, so illegals would not depart custody without a hearing date.
Waiting for an NTA at the border can take hours, so skipping the step would make releasing illegals into the country happen a lot more quickly, according to the report.
The Rio Grande Valley of Texas is at more than 700% capacity right now, Fox News reported, amid the Biden administration's open border policies that have led to a migrant surge in the past weeks and months.
The release of migrants without an NTA does not include unaccompanied minors, which have surged at the border, too, and have stressed out over capacity child detention centers.
"While ORR [Office of Refugee Resettlement] has worked to build up its licensed bed capacity to almost 13,500 beds, additional capacity is urgently needed to manage both enhanced COVID-19 mitigation strategies and the increasing numbers of UC (unaccompanied children) referrals from DHS," an ORR spokesperson told Fox News.
Even Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas admitted last week border crossings were on track for a 20-year high. More than 100,000 migrants crossed the border in February, according to CBP.
"We are on pace to encounter more individuals on the southwest border than we have in the last 20 years," Mayorkas said.
Additionally, the Biden administration is considering flying migrants to northern border states to handle the mass migration, The Washington Post reported Friday.
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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