(Molly Bruns, Headline USA) The Department of Homeland Security is willing to pay millions of dollars to a private organization to assist with writing policies for a program which would track illegal immigrants released from custody.
According to the Daily Caller, the DHS is hoping to get help running Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Alternatives to Detention program.
Established in 2004, ICE used the ATD program to track illegal immigrants released into the U.S. with ankle bracelets and cell phones. The current contract is worth between $1-2 million.
“This is just another attempt by this administration to let immigration advocates decide what a federal law enforcement agency can and can’t do and how they’re going to do business, which is unconscionable,” former acting ICE Director Tom Homan said.
A group known as the Church World Service, which previously advocated for an end to ICE altogether, handled the Case Management Pilot Program for the institution.
“ICE officers and policy staff could easily develop ATD policies without the involvement of some NGO that opposes ICE’s mission. The experienced officers who have seen their fair share of ATD violations should be driving this — but this administration’s goal is to take officers out of the equation, it seems,” said former ICE Chief of Staff Jon Feere.
The ATD program is largely unreliable as it is—between 2015 and 2020, 84% of illegal migrants in the program disappeared and are no longer being tracked.
Researchers caught ICE massively underreporting the number of immigrants released into the United States with no tracking mechanism by 18,000%.
Reporters also caught ICE overreporting the number of illegals they are actively tracking.
“ICE has a policy shop, DHS has a policy shop. So why are they going to a nongovernment agency when they already have policy shops in place that do this exact thing?” Homan asked. “I’ll tell you why, because they want an outside NGO to write policies that are gonna do away with compliance, do away with the GPS capability.”
 The Department of Homeland Security is willing to pay millions of dollars to a private organization to assist with writing policies for a program which would track illegal immigrants released from custody.){kind=link}