Migrants entering the U.S. at the southern border are using bogus addresses — Catholic Charities addresses — to avoid Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), The Washington Times reported.
Migrants are then set free with the expectation they would later collect immigration court summonses from ICE, the Times reported.
The Notice to Appear (NTA) is what alerts immigration courts that a migrant has been put into deportation proceedings.
The result is ICE's inability to serve those migrants with their initial immigration court summons, thus providing a way to avoid the initial step in deportation cases.
"If we don't serve a Notice to Appear to them, they aren't placed into proceedings," one officer said. "So the true backlog is not being accurately portrayed."
Thus, some migrants who have valid asylum claims don't get to prove their cases, and others duck the first step on the path toward eventual deportation.
"If you keep them off the docket there's never a court hearing, which means the next time ICE gets them, they're just then beginning that process. This is to delay as long as possible the removal of illegal aliens," said Rob Law, who served as a senior official at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services in the Trump administration.
Catholic Charities and Homeland Security (DHS) acknowledged the practice is happening, the Times reported.
DHS said it must accept any valid addresses migrants provide, but nonprofit organization said the problem is a symptom of a "broken" immigration system.
A spokesman for Catholic Charities, which became aware of the issue in April, said the issue "has caused us great concern." He added that the situation extends to nonprofit groups other than Catholic Charities.
"The practice of misaddressing immigration documents places extreme burdens on asylum-seekers, nonprofit organizations and the U.S. courts," Bill Gangluff, chief communications officer at Catholic Charities USA, told the Times.
"Incorrect addresses will cause those seeking asylum to miss court appearances and jeopardize their status because they may never receive their documents. It causes legal, logistical and resource concerns for Catholic Charities agencies. And it disrupts the docket by denying the court the ability to notify asylum-seekers about important court dates and proceedings."
DHS officials, however, have accused the nonprofit and the migrants of acting together.
One immigration officer told the Times that more than 10% of migrants in their region were using the tactic — nationally, that would translate into tens of thousands of migrants each month using fake addresses.
The practice could become more prevalent after Title 42 lapses on Wednesday.
The policy, implemented by the Trump administration, allowed for the expulsion of migrants due to health concerns amid the COVID-19 pandemic. A federal judge last month gave the Biden administration until Dec. 21 to wind down its use of Title 42 to expel migrants.
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