WASHINGTON, D.C. –– Today, House Committee on Homeland Security Chairman Mark E. Green, MD (R-TN) released a statement following a new report from Fox News’ Bill Melugin showing that the number of illegal aliens on Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Non-Detained Docket (NDD) increased by more than one million just since the start of Fiscal Year (FY) 2024, and by roughly four million under President Joe Biden and now-impeached Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas’ leadership.

This does not count those released through various parole programs like the Cuban, Haitian, Nicaraguan, and Venezuelan (CHNV) mass-parole program, nor the roughly two million known gotaways that have evaded law enforcement altogether.

“These numbers are further proof of President Biden and Secretary Mayorkas’ radical commitment to open borders, and the secretary’s high crimes and misdemeanors committed to make them a reality. The laws passed by substantial bipartisan majorities in Congress make very clear that illegal aliens must be detained, but Biden and Mayorkas have instead directed and overseen the mass release of illegal aliens into our communities. There is simply no excuse for this defiance of our nation’s longstanding laws. Their policy of mass catch-and-release continues to overwhelm DHS law enforcement, yet the Biden administration has also consistently asked for fewer ICE beds, and then failed to use all the beds Congress has authorized and funded. Would-be border crossers around the world are making the bet that if they cross under this administration, they will be released into the interior. These numbers show that’s usually a winning wager to make.”
 
Background:

Per ICE’s FY23 annual report, the NDD as of September 2023 stood at 6,199,629, and now totals 7.4 million. At the end of FY20, NDD cases totaled roughly 3.2 million, showing that the docket has grown by more than four million since then. The current NDD number would be even higher if not for the hundreds of thousands of cases arbitrarily dismissed, in keeping with a memo issued by ICE’s principal legal adviser Kerry Doyle in 2022.

The growth of the NDD in this period of time is also a historical anomaly. According to testimony before the House Committee on Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security in March 2014, ICE’s deputy director indicated the NDD stood at 1.8 million at the end of FY13, and around three years later (August 2016), it had increased to 2.2 million individuals, per a DHS OIG report. In other words, in the three years between October 2013 and August 2016, the docket expanded by 400,000 individuals. From October 2020 to this spring, it has increased around 10 times that amount.   

Further compounding the problem is massive disparity in the number of illegal aliens with a final order of removal versus those without one. According to ICE’s FY23 and FY22 annual reports, the former increased from 1.216 million in FY22 to 1.292 million in FY23, an increase of around 76,000, while the latter increased from 3.542 million in FY22 to 4.906 million in FY23, an increase of roughly 1.4 million. Illegal aliens are being released into the interior far faster than they are being ordered removed—let alone actually removed. 

These numbers are conclusive proof of the shocking number of inadmissible aliens released into the interior under Biden and Mayorkas.

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