The Trump administration is moving aggressively to restore order to the nation’s immigration system, with tens of thousands of illegal migrants now placed into deportation proceedings after being left in legal limbo under President Joe Biden, Breitbart reported Thursday.
The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services has issued nearly 86,500 Notices to Appear since President Donald Trump took office, according to the Department of Homeland Security. NTAs are formal charging documents requiring an illegal immigrant to appear before a federal immigration judge.
In an interview with Breitbart, USCIS Director Joseph Edlow said Biden officials failed to enforce existing law.
“Under the Biden administration, there was no policy on NTAs,” Edlow said. “When a case was denied and the person was in limbo with no other legal pathway, nothing was happening.”
That has now changed.
“Now, those people … when they are denied [benefits], they are given a Notice to Appear and sent to immigration court,” Edlow told Breitbart.
DHS defines immigration “benefits” as naturalization, legal permanent residence, or authorization to work in the United States. Illegal immigrants who are denied such benefits are being swiftly placed into the court system for resolution.
Officials say nearly 60,000 of the 86,500 NTAs under Trump’s USCIS have been issued in just the past few months, reflecting the administration’s intensified enforcement.
Edlow said a strong NTA policy is essential to prevent hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants from remaining in the U.S. indefinitely without resolution.
“There should be an end to those cases,” he said. “That end is either them getting relief before an immigration judge or their ultimate removal from this country.”
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