Matthew Albence, the acting director of ICE, said Monday that cartels have “victimized” children to allow adults to exploit loopholes in U.S. immigration law, Fox News reports.
Albence told “Fox & Friends” that criminal groups in Mexico use a loophole in immigration law to allow adults to claim asylum in the U.S. if they come to the border with a child and falsely claim to be a family unit.
"These children are being victimized," he said. "We know they are being trafficked. We know they are being recycled and sent back across the border numerous times by cartels to be utilized again and placed with a nonrelative adult just so that adult can be released because they know we can't hold them."
Albence said the border is currently in a “humanitarian and national security crisis,” and that this is preventing immigration officials from carrying out their law enforcement duties.
"Those officers that ordinarily would be out there arresting criminals, arresting gang members, arresting public safety threats out there on the street, they are now at the border in El Paso and RGV[Rio Grande Valley], processing families and releasing them," he said.
Albence went on to blame Congress for refusing to act.
"Until Congress changes the laws, and fixes these loopholes, and prevents us from being able to detain these individuals, detain these families together, allow them to have their due process in accelerated fashion and remove them at the end of that process if so ordered by a judge or release them if so ordered by a judge, we will continue to have this problem," he said.
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