ICE Cracks Down On Migrants Who Skip Out On Tracking Program With Spate of Colorado Arrests; Man On Terrorist Watchlist Was Dropped From Program That Monitors Migrants

ICE cracks down on migrants who skip out on tracking program with spate of Colorado arrests:

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers in Colorado arrested nine migrants who had skipped out on the the Alternatives to Detention (ATD) tracking program.

The arrests include a 25-year-old Nicaraguan caught in possession of a firearm and narcotics. Others have accumulated between 50 and 100 violations of the program, which requires electronic monitoring of an individual while they are in the US pursuing an asylum claim.

The ways ICE keeps tabs on migrants are either by ankle or wrist monitor, through phone check-ins which use voice recognition or SmartLINK, where a migrant checks in via a cellphone app with facial recognition.

An ICE spokesperson told The Post the agency’s policies prevent it from releasing the identities of those who are arrested and placed in detention.

At least two of the individuals, who had been enrolled in the program since 2014 — around 10 years — were deported to Mexico.

Prominent absconders from the program include Diego Ibarra — an alleged member of the Venezuelan gang Tren De Aragua and brother of the migrant charged with murdering nursing student Laken Riley — and Leonel Moreno, the Venezuelan “migrant influencer” who urged others to “invade” the US and squat in citizens’ homes, as The Post has previously reported.

Ibarra cut off his ATD ankle monitor in Colorado in April 2023, but was only arrested in February 2024 when authorities in Georgia were searching for his brother and found him at the residence they shared, carrying a fake green card.

Moreno was arrested on March 29, two years after he was caught illegally entering the US in Texas, after which he promptly skipping out on ICE check-in appointments. —>READ MORE HERE

Man on terrorist watchlist was dropped from program that monitors migrants:

When an Afghan national on the FBI terrorist watchlist was arrested last Thursday after having spent nearly a year in the U.S., immigration officials said he had been enrolled in a program that tracked his location via ankle monitor, mobile app or telephone.

But the man’s participation in the monitoring program, known as Alternatives to Detention, lasted only a little over two weeks, NBC News has learned.

Mohammad Kharwin, 48, is believed to have then spent 10 months in the U.S. without any kind of monitoring system, according to sources familiar with his case.

The national terrorist watchlist indicates Kharwin is a member of Hezb-e-Islami, or HIG, an Afghanistan-based political and paramilitary group that the U.S. has designated a terrorist organization.

HIG was responsible for attacks in Afghanistan that killed at least nine American soldiers and civilians from 2013 to 2015. The group is not seen as a top threat in terms of attacks inside the U.S.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Homeland Security Department officials did not respond to requests for comment about Kharwin’s being taken off the tracking program.

NBC News reported last week that Customs and Border Protection agents first arrested Kharwin on March 10, 2023, near San Ysidro, California, after he crossed the Mexico-U.S. border illegally.

At the time, Customs and Border Protection agents did not have complete information about Kharwin and could not confirm that he was on the terrorist watchlist. So he was treated like other low-threat migrants coming into the U.S.

When border agents released him, Kharwin was referred to Alternatives to Detention, run by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE. Kharwin was enrolled in the tracking program on March 12, 2023, and then taken out of it on March 28, 2023. It is not clear why he was dropped from the program.

Roughly a year later, ICE agents arrested Kharwin in February after the FBI passed information to them indicating that Kharwin had potential terrorist ties. But when Kharwin appeared in court, ICE prosecutors did not share some classified information with the immigration judge that purportedly showed Kharwin’s ties to a terrorist group, two U.S. officials said. —>READ MORE HERE

Source