Border Patrol agents in the Rio Grande Valley are releasing asylum-seeking migrants into the US without issuing them court dates amid an influx of unlawful crossings along the border, a report said Sunday.
The measure is meant to bypass the hours-long process of giving the migrants a “notice to appear,” which requires tedious paperwork, several agents told Fox News.
Migrants crossing Customs and Border Protection’s Rio Grande Valley sector — the busiest crossing point in Fiscal Year 2021 — are instead being registered into a digital system using identifying characteristics, the report said.
The migrants are then responsible to schedule their own asylum hearing, the report said, either with the help of legal assistance or through Immigrations and Customs Enforcement.
On Saturday, before the new move was confirmed, a CBP source told Fox News the migrant crisis has “become so dire that BP [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.”
Border Patrol agents said the expedited process is not being used for unaccompanied children.
CBP’s Rio Grande Valley sector saw the majority of southwest border crossings in February, with 27,913 unaccompanied kids, families and single adults making their way into the region from Mexico, data shows.
As of Thursday, those numbers were set to nearly double for March after CBP recorded more than 34,000 crossings in just 19 days, including more than 10,000 in a single week, officials have said.