Cuellar: Biden Can End Catch and Release of Migrants Through Alternatives to Detention Under Current Law
On Thursday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “The Story,” Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX) called for the Biden administration to expand the use of Title 8 and use it for people in the Alternatives to Detention program and that “we cannot have catch and release.”
Cuellar began by saying, “I’d say this, we cannot have catch and release. We cannot allow people to come in and wait four or five, six years for an asylum case in front of an immigration judge, where we know that 87 to 90% are going to be rejected. So, we need to make sure we do those asylum claims at the border and return probably 87 to 90% and just let in 10% of those people coming in. That’s how we secure the border, in my opinion.”
Later, after the discussion turned to the Alternatives to Detention program, “Right now, there is a law called Title 8 expedited removal. They’re only applying that for people that are in detention, and what I’ve suggested to the secretary is that they ought to look at somebody that’s under the alternative detention, which is what you mentioned, and use Title 8 expedited removal to probably remove those people a lot quicker, because they won’t qualify — or [I should say] most of them will not qualify for asylum.”
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