President Donald Trump’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is rolling back former President Joe Biden’s so-called “quiet amnesty” by reopening deportation cases that were previously administratively closed for hundreds of thousands of illegal migrants.
Under Biden, immigration courts were directed for years to dismiss or administratively close deportation cases for illegal aliens rather than proceed with asylum hearings, most of which typically result in denials. Democrats under then-Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer pointedly ignored Biden’s flouting of existing law.
As a reversal of this policy, DHS officials are now reopening deportation cases for illegal aliens whose cases had previously been dismissed or administratively closed, according to the Los Angeles Times.
“Biden chose to release millions of illegal aliens, including criminals, into the country and used prosecutorial discretion to indefinitely delay their cases and allow them to illegally remain in the United States,” DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said.
“Now, President Trump and Secretary Noem are following the law and resuming these illegal aliens’ removal proceedings and ensuring their cases are heard by a judge,” she added.
Last year, the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement, chaired by Rep. Tom McClintock (R-CA), released a report outlining the extent of Biden’s “quiet amnesty” through administrative case closures.
“The Biden-Harris Administration has used the immigration court backlog as an excuse to allow even more aliens to remain in the country,” says the report.
Instead of actually adjudicating illegal aliens’ cases based on the merits of aliens’ claims for relief—such as whether an alien has a valid and successful asylum claim—immigration judges under the Biden-Harris Administration have been tasked with rubberstamping case dismissals, case closures, and case terminations, all of which allow illegal aliens to remain in the United States without immigration consequences,” the report continued. “This sort of quiet amnesty has become a staple of the Biden-Harris Administration’s immigration courts.”
It added: “Under the Biden-Harris Administration, more than 700,000 illegal aliens have had their cases dismissed, terminated, or administratively closed, allowing those aliens to stay in the country indefinitely without facing immigration consequences.”
Meanwhile, a Democratic state lawmaker who tipped off her community about ICE operations could face obstruction-of-justice charges, McLaughlin told Fox News.
Following Arizona state Senator Analise Ortiz’s admission on social media that she had alerted residents to ICE activity, McLaughlin said in a statement to Fox News that Ortiz was prioritizing “illegal criminals over American citizens.”
“Arizona state Senator Analise Ortiz is siding with vicious cartels, human traffickers, and violent criminals over American citizens,” she said. “Notifying the public about ICE law enforcement operations endangers law enforcement and weakens American national security.”
Responding to Fox News’ inquiry about whether Ortiz could face charges, McLaughlin said, “This certainly looks like obstruction of justice.”
She then noted that ICE and immigration enforcement agents are facing a more than 1,000 percent single-year increase in assaults.
“The men and women of ICE put their lives on the line every day to arrest violent criminal illegal aliens to protect and defend the lives of American citizens,” McLaughlin told Fox. “Make no mistake, sanctuary politicians like Arizona Senator Analise Ortiz are contributing to the surge in assaults of our ICE officers through their repeated vilification and demonization of ICE.”
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This follows criticism from the popular conservative social media account “Libs of TikTok,” which slammed Sen. Ortiz for sharing updates on ICE operations. The account posted a screenshot—purportedly from Ortiz’s social media—that included an alert in both English and Spanish reading “ICE is present,” along with the specific location of the federal agents.
Libs of TikTok wrote, “Arizona State Senator Analise Ortiz (D) is actively impeding and doxxing ICE by posting their live locations on instagram.” The account then pressed Border Czar Tom Homan, the DHS and ICE to file charges against Ortiz.