Blaze News original: Biden's 'smoke and mirrors' executive order won't curb illegal crossings, experts warn: 'A purely political play'



On June 4, President Joe Biden released a new executive order that the administration claimed would crack down on the influx of illegal aliens crossing the border, despite previously insisting that his hands were tied regarding the immigration crisis.

Border security and immigration experts told Blaze News that the administration's executive action will do very little, if anything, to actually reduce the number of illegal crossings into the United States.

About the order

The White House's executive order would only temporarily take effect if the number of illegal immigrants averages 2,500 over a seven-day period. The order also contains many exceptions, including for unaccompanied minors, those experiencing medical emergencies, and victims of a "severe form" of trafficking.

Simon Hankinson, senior research fellow at the Border Security and Immigration Center at the Heritage Foundation, told Blaze News, "Coming three and a half years, and nearly 10 million illegal arrivals into Biden's term, this order is a purely political play. This isn't shutting the barn door after the horse has bolted. It's closing the barn door half an inch, while inviting more horses into the barn so they can bolt too."

"Biden's belated and feckless executive action won't discourage anyone from coming illegally," he continued. "As long as they know from social media, smugglers, and friends that they'll almost certainly be released on arrival, people from 180 countries will keep on coming. As the daily crossing numbers and reporters at the border show, this 63-page executive action, riddled with exceptions, and without the will to enforce even its mild provisions, is having no demonstrable effect."

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas outlined the details of the order during a recent interview with ABC News' "Start Here" podcast.

'Asylum is very much still alive.'

"Individuals encountered in between the ports of entry at our southern border will be barred from seeking asylum," Mayorkas explained. However, he went on to note, "The way in which they can seek asylum now, with this order in effect, is by using the CBP One app and making an appointment to arrive at a port of entry in a safe and orderly way, or accessing one of our many other lawful pathways that we have established for people to receive humanitarian relief without placing their lives in the hands of smugglers."

Customs and Border Protection's CBP One application allows foreign nationals to schedule appointments at ports of entry along the border to file an asylum claim.

Mayorkas reiterated that only illegal immigrants who attempt to cross the southern border outside of a port of entry could be barred from requesting asylum.

"If the number of people we encounter averages for seven consecutive calendar days less than 1,500, then we will lift this bar," Mayorkas continued, adding that the administration "can" and has "the right" to reinstitute the ban if the average number of encounters reaches 2,500 per day for seven consecutive days.

During the interview, Mayorkas commended the Biden administration for building additional "lawful pathways" for those seeking to claim asylum in the U.S.

"More than a million people have accessed those lawful pathways in the past year," he added. "Asylum is very much still alive, but we are deterring irregular migration in between the ports of entry and trying to cut out the smugglers."

Mayorkas acknowledged that the administration knew the American Civil Liberties Union planned to challenge the executive order's legality.

Conservative lawmakers have argued that the executive action lacks teeth, citing the narrow requirements that trigger its enforcement and the lengthy list of exceptions even once it is enforced.

John Fabbricatore, a retired Immigration and Customs Enforcement Denver Field Office director and current Republican congressional candidate for Colorado's 6th District, told Blaze News that the order is "largely smoke and mirrors" that amounts "to a shell game."

"It doesn't genuinely address the problem of securing the border. There isn't a clear plan for detention, leading me to believe that the order won't stop the release of many illegal aliens into the interior. To me, this amounts to an indirect form of amnesty through intentional inaction," Fabbricatore remarked.

Biden blames Republicans

During the White House's announcement of the new executive action, the administration blamed Republican lawmakers for the open border crisis.

"Earlier this year, the President and his team reached a historic bipartisan agreement with Senate Democrats and Republicans to deliver the most consequential reforms of America's immigration laws in decades," the administration claimed. "But Republicans in Congress chose to put partisan politics ahead of our national security, twice voting against the toughest and fairest set of reforms in decades."

Hankinson told Blaze News that the Secure the Border Act, H.R. 2, was "real legislation that would have restored sanity at the border."

"The Democrat-controlled Senate has refused to vote on the bill. The Senate 'bipartisan' bill that came out in February was mere water to HR2's wine. It locked crisis levels of illegal migration into law, failed to stop Biden's mass abuse of parole, failed to curb asylum fraud or the use of children to avoid immigration detention, and granted extraordinary discretion to an administration that has shown itself unworthy of it," Hankinson explained.

"The Senate bill also fed the United Nations-NGO beast that is encouraging and paying for millions of people to migrate illegally towards the United States," he continued. "Biden has tried to convince voters that the Senate bill was tough, but any objective analysis shows the opposite. Again, pure politics. Meanwhile, Biden refuses to uphold the rule of law by ignoring statutes already on the books that require detention of all foreigners entering the U.S. illegally, and granting mass parole in violation of the law's clear intent."

Jon Feere, director of investigations at the Center for Immigration Studies, echoed a similar sentiment regarding the stalled Secure the Border Act, calling it the only "border-related bill that would begin to reverse the Biden administration's lawlessness."

Feere told Blaze News, "The Biden administration does not want it to become law, an obvious sign that they have no interest in actually securing the border."

"Everything the Biden administration has done on immigration has been explicitly designed to undermine enforcement of the nation's immigration laws and the result has been an unprecedented explosion in illegal immigration," Feere continued. "In order to put an end to the lawlessness, the Executive Branch would have to dramatically ramp up arrests and deportations of illegal aliens and invoke serious consequences for border-crossers and companies that hire them. This proclamation does nothing to discourage illegal immigration, and the chaos will continue."

What will the executive order actually accomplish?

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) recently argued that the Biden administration's executive action will "attract and invite" more illegal immigrants to cross the southern border.

He told Fox News, "This is gaslighting our fellow Americans. When Biden gets up and says, 'This is going to stop people from coming across the border,' when he says, 'It's going to secure the border,' in fact, it is making illegal border crossings worse."

Fabbricatore told Blaze News that he agrees with Abbott, stating that the order "will encourage more illegal crossings."

'A significant vetting and national security failure.'

"Evidence of this can already be seen along the border. I predict we will see even more mass crossings before the November election," he remarked. "I don't see any positive effects from this executive order on the current border crisis. It seems more like a political move that President Biden needed to make before the election rather than a solution to the problem. Fraudulent asylum claims, of which less than 15% are eventually approved, continue to rise, reaching nearly 500,000 claims in 2023. The order doesn't address the limited detention space, and recent announcements about closing the Dilley Immigration Detention Center only worsen the issue by eliminating over 1,000 beds."

Fabbricatore explained that even if the number of encounters drops to the executive order's 1,500 daily threshold, Border Patrol agents will still be unable to keep up.

"In a 2019 interview, former Obama administration DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson stated that 1,000 apprehensions a day constituted a crisis. This remains true today. Under the Biden administration, Border Patrol agents have been processing between 1,000 and 6,000 daily, which is unsustainable and represents a significant vetting and national security failure. The morale of the Border Patrol and ICE is extremely low, a condition deliberately caused by the Biden administration from day one," Fabbricatore told Blaze News.

What happens now?

As anticipated, on June 12, the ACLU filed a lawsuit against the Biden administration over its so-called "cruel" and restrictive executive order. The nonprofit, which filed the suit on behalf of two pro-immigration groups, claimed that the action "severely restricts asylum" and puts "thousands of lives at risk."

After announcing the executive action, the Biden administration's CBP released an internal memo to San Diego sector Border Patrol agents instructing them to release most illegal immigrants from Eastern Hemisphere countries into the U.S. The communication directed agents to provide the individuals with Notice to Appear documents and release them from custody on their own recognizance, an instruction that contradicted the administration's claim that it planned to crack down on unlawful entries.

In recent months, the San Diego area has been hit with a massive uptick in illegal immigration, with foreign nationals from all over the world attempting to unlawfully enter the country near the remote town of Jacumba Hot Springs.

San Diego County Supervisor Jim Desmond told Blaze News, "This executive order is a facade, offering the illusion of security while doing nothing to address the real issues at our borders. This past weekend alone, thousands of individuals entered San Diego County, exacerbating the alarming number of over 151,000 street releases this fiscal year. This policy effectively allows anyone into the country, regardless of their background or intentions."

Fabbricatore warned that the Biden administration will likely increase the number of foreign nationals it processes through its CBP One app.

"In my opinion this seems like a deliberate action to bypass Congress and allow thousands more to enter the country. Over 80% of these asylum claims will likely be deemed not credible and dismissed. However, given that millions of final removal orders are already pending in the ICE system, the administration knows these individuals are unlikely to be deported," he told Blaze News.

With the country's immigration crisis a top concern for voters, it remains to be seen whether Biden's last-ditch effort to appear tough on unlawful crossings will earn him any additional votes. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle seem equally unimpressed with Biden's executive order.

'A blatant contradiction.'

Eighteen Democratic lawmakers, led by Reps. Delia Ramirez (Ill.) and Jesús "Chuy" García (Ill.), wrote a letter Tuesday to Mayorkas and United States Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Ur Jaddou, slamming the administration's executive action.

"Allowing the consideration of mandatory bars to asylum during initial asylum screening interviews will force asylum seekers to present legally and factually complex arguments explaining the life-threatening harms they are fleeing shortly after enduring a long, traumatic journey and while being held in immigration detention and essentially cut off from legal help," the letter read.

Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green (R-Tenn.) told Blaze News that the administration's executive order will not curb illegal immigration.

"The only way to end this self-inflicted border crisis is to end the perverse incentives that encourage mass illegal immigration," Green stated. "This executive order does not come close to doing that. In fact, it legitimizes crisis levels of illegal immigration, broadcasts to the cartels that they can continue to exploit vulnerable people, and allows Border Patrol agents to continue releasing illegal aliens into the interior if they don't claim asylum."

"The cartels know this order won't change anything on the ground, which is why we've seen reports for almost a week now that mass numbers of illegal aliens are still coming across, completely undeterred by this unserious administration. A true leader in the White House would admit his open-borders policies have failed, and use his executive authority to reimplement the policies that worked, and enforce the laws he swore to uphold," Green added.

Feere with CIS told Blaze News that Biden's attempt to appear tough on illegal immigration will not convince voters this November.

"Nothing the administration does now will make a difference," he declared. "In fact, it's only going to get worse as the fallout from their open border agenda impacts all aspects of our lives, from crime to school overcrowding, not to mention the terrorist threats the administration has welcomed into our country."

United States Rep. Lance Gooden (R-Texas) told Blaze News that voters "see through this charade."

"For three years Biden has lied about the border crisis, dodged responsibility by blaming Congress, and now in a blatant contradiction issues a meaningless executive order months before Election Day," Gooden said.

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Blaze News investigates: ICE officials speak out about how 'sanctuary' policies protect criminals



Many Democratic-run jurisdictions across the United States have adopted various forms of so-called 'sanctuary' policies that continue to provide protections to illegal migrant criminals by creating massive roadblocks for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to the agency and immigration experts.

The term "sanctuary policy" describes several similar ordinances that ultimately prevent local and state law enforcement officials from coordinating and cooperating with federal immigration officers.

Marie Ferguson, a spokesperson for ICE's New York City Field Office, told Blaze News that there is "no official or agreed-upon definition of what constitutes a 'sanctuary' jurisdiction"; however, the policies typically encompass three categories: "Don't enforce," "don't ask," and "don't tell."

Ferguson explained that "don't enforce" policies prohibit police from aiding federal immigration authorities; "don't ask" policies ban local officials from looking into an individual's immigration status; and "don't tell" policies prohibit police and federal officials from sharing information.

How do sanctuary policies undermine ICE?

Ferguson stated that measures restricting cooperation between local law enforcement agencies and federal immigration officers "threaten public safety" because it "means criminal noncitizens are released back into our communities with opportunity to reoffend before being apprehended by [ICE's] Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO)."

John Fabbricatore, a retired ICE Denver Field Office Director and current Republican congressional candidate for Colorado's 6th District, told Blaze News that the regulations in sanctuary jurisdictions prevent local law enforcement agencies from communicating with ICE when they arrest or release an illegal alien.

"It makes it where ICE then has to go and find that information in other ways," he stated.

Fabbricatore explained that it is becoming more difficult for ICE to do its job because, in addition to restricting local law enforcement cooperation, some sanctuary laws also prevent other state-run agencies, such as motor vehicle and labor departments, from communicating with ICE.

"Here in Denver, they don't even allow probation and parole to give information to ICE," he told Blaze News. "So this is an illegal alien that's been convicted of a crime and then released out onto the street, and ICE is not allowed to get any information on that person. But yet, the illegal alien is going out on, say, probation, and it's being paid for by the U.S. taxpayer."

Two Colorado counties filed a lawsuit this week against the state, demanding it put an end to its sanctuary policies, claiming the measures "create dangerous conditions" for residents and citizens. Approximately 40,000 illegal migrants have moved to Denver over the past 16 months.

I support Douglas County in filing this lawsuit against the state of Colorado concerning sanctuary policy laws passed by the state legislature. These laws only protect convicted criminal Illegal aliens and do nothing to protect tax-paying citizens and legal residents.\u2026
— (@)

Fabbricatore says sanctuary policies were created as part of the abolish-ICE movement to hinder federal immigration officials. These restrictions typically prevent local or state law enforcement from honoring ICE's detainer requests.

ICE's ERO, which "manages all aspects of the immigration enforcement process," according to the agency's website, places detainer requests against migrants who have been arrested and held by local or state law enforcement agencies for committing criminal acts.

"Detainers request that state or local law enforcement agencies maintain custody of the noncitizen for a period not to exceed 48 hours beyond the time the individual would otherwise be released, allowing ERO to assume custody for removal purposes in accordance with federal law," Ferguson told Blaze News.

Without coordination from local agencies, ICE officials are forced to "expend additional resources and search within neighborhoods to re-apprehend these criminals at increased risk to the public and our officers," Ferguson remarked.

The ICE spokesperson noted that detainer requests "are a critical public safety tool" to ensure that criminals do not end up back on the street.

"Since detainers result in the direct transfer of a noncitizen from state or local custody to ERO custody, they minimize the potential that an individual will reoffend," Ferguson added.

The Department of Homeland Security, which includes ICE, has the authority under federal law to issue administrative arrest warrants for immigration violations. ICE issues an administrative warrant of arrest with each detainer request. However, sanctuary policies often state that federal authorities must obtain a criminal warrant issued by a judge or magistrate, which ICE claims "is not required or necessary according to federal law."

"When law enforcement agencies fail to honor immigration detainers and release serious criminal offenders onto the streets, it undermines ERO's ability to protect public safety and carry out its mission," Ferguson noted.

What are the consequences of sanctuary policies?

Fabbricatore, a board member of the National Immigration Center for Enforcement, provided testimony last year at the House Immigration Subcommittee's hearing, "Examine Sanctuary Cities That Shield Illegal Aliens." He raised concerns about the "erosion of immigration enforcement and lack of respect for the rule of law" and warned about the "hundreds of thousands of criminal aliens at large" in the country under the Biden administration.

"As an ICE field office director, I witnessed the deterioration of relationships with local law enforcement agencies because of sanctuary policies," he told lawmakers.

According to Fabbricatore, detainers were helpful tools utilized by ICE to ensure public safety until sanctuary policies began prohibiting the coordination between law enforcement agencies.

"A lot of the sanctuary jurisdictions don't allow their county jails to hold ICE detainees," Fabbricatore stated, referring to sheriff's departments that rent out their unused jail space to ICE. "That limits the overall population for what ICE can hold to a very low number."

According to Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse data, nearly 35,000 illegal migrants were being held in ICE detention as of April 7. Fabbricatore stated that the number of individuals in ICE custody is "very low" considering "the millions of people that are coming in and how many we could put in detention if we had that detention space."

Sanctuary policies have forced ICE to exert additional manpower and hours to locate and detain illegal migrant criminals. If local law enforcement agencies were allowed to notify ICE before a criminal migrant was released from jail, it would only require one or two federal immigration agents to pick up and transfer the individual into federal custody, Fabbricatore explained to Blaze News. It can take up to six officers to apprehend a suspect who has been released onto the street, he added. ICE officers must also run surveillance before attempting to apprehend a suspect, which typically requires at least two officers, Fabbricatore said.

"So it takes a greater amount of hours and much more manpower than if a local jurisdiction would just say, 'Hey, this person's getting ready for release. ICE, come pick them up,'" he declared.

Fabbricatore noted that federal agents catching illegal migrants on the street is not only more expensive for taxpayers but also far more dangerous for officers.

"When two officers can go to the jail, it's a secure environment," he added. "But when you go to a home, or you pull someone over in a car, they are in the community. And now you have the potential as you go to pull someone over, they flee, they crash into somebody else. Or you go to a home where they have access to firearms. Or you arrest them in front of their house in a neighborhood where maybe their neighbors are on their side, and they come out and now there's a big riot."

Experts explained that it is difficult to estimate how much longer illegal migrant criminals are out on the street as a result of the lack of communication between local and federal law enforcement agencies.

Jon Feere, director of investigations with the Center for Immigration Studies, told Blaze News, "The truth is, ICE doesn't even know when a detainer that's not honored results in the release of an alien."

Feere explained that in states like California that do not honor most detainers, ICE will not be notified that the state denied its request. In those instances, the suspect is released from custody without ICE notification.

"They'll just ignore the request altogether," Feere said.

ICE does not learn that its detainer was ignored and the suspect was released from local custody until that individual commits another crime and pops back up on the agency's radar, Feere explained.

He noted that California's policies also prohibit its sheriff's departments from participating in the 287(g) program. According to the ICE's website, this program "enhances the safety and security" of communities by authorizing the agency "to delegate to state and local law enforcement officers the authority to perform specified immigration officer functions under the agency's direction and oversight."

The program allows ICE to train sheriffs on how to identify criminal illegal migrants in their prisons and begin the paperwork process to prepare the individual for removal.

"Those are critical law enforcement partnerships. Sanctuary cities generally outlaw them," Feere remarked. "One of the things that people don't realize is that a lot of these illegal aliens who show up in jails after having been arrested have no records whatsoever. And, as a result, the sheriffs don't know who the person is and ICE doesn't know who the person is until an interview occurs."

Under ICE's Criminal Apprehension Program, officers "actually go and interview some of these individuals in the jails and they will usually admit that they're here unlawfully."

"A lot of sanctuary jurisdictions don't permit ICE to have access to their jails, which is another form of protecting criminal aliens," he said.

Regarding the types of crimes committed, Feere said it could be "almost anything you can imagine."

"It's actually quite shocking that these sanctuaries choose not to honor detainers for aliens who have been arrested for everything from DUIs to carjacking to sexual assaults. These jurisdictions have decided that allowing a foreign national to get away with violating our immigration laws is more important than public safety," he told Blaze News.

What jurisdictions have adopted sanctuary policies?

Many states, cities, and counties across the nation have adopted measures that prevent police from coordinating with federal immigration officials. According to the Center for Immigration Studies, as of April 12, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Utah, Vermont, and Washington have enacted sanctuary policies at the state level.

In Massachusetts, there are eight cities, including Boston, that have committed to shielding illegal migrants from ICE. The influx of new arrivals has caused the state's shelter system to become overwhelmed. A report published earlier this year by WBZ claimed that the state is spending roughly $64 per day to feed each migrant.

Additionally, Massachusetts is the only state in the nation with a "right to shelter" law that requires every homeless family to be provided with accommodations that include refrigeration and basic cooking facilities. Since many overflow shelters do not fulfill this requirement, the state has resorted to contracting third-party vendors to deliver food to migrants, the WBZ report found.

Paul Craney with Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance told Blaze News, "During her tenure as Massachusetts Attorney General, current Governor Maura Healey vigorously pursued the legal case which now actively prevents Massachusetts's local, county, and state law enforcement from cooperating with federal immigration authorities. At the time, she hailed her win at the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court as 'a victory for the rule of law and smart immigration and criminal justice policies …'"

"The victims at the heart of the recent case in the town of Milford likely disagree with her statement," Craney stated, referring to an incident in which an illegal migrant was charged with child rape after a Massachusetts District Court ignored ICE's detainer request, releasing the man back out onto the street.

"The governor and the Massachusetts legislature have the power to fix this dangerous injustice whenever they feel so moved. Federal immigration authorities are tasked with keeping track of recent immigrants and are the organization most in the know as to which, if any, new arrivals may be a threat to the children, people, and property of the people of this country," he stated.

Craney argued that the state's sanctuary policies, which Healey (D) backed, are "actively harming the people of Massachusetts" and creating "a colossal waste in taxpayer money" by forcing ICE to exhaust more time and resources to locate and apprehend criminals.

"It's time for Governor Healey and the legislature to demonstrate that they have some modicum of compassion and empathy for the people being hurt by their inaction and fix the mess they've made," Craney told Blaze News.

Ferguson, an ICE spokesperson with the New York City Field Office, told Blaze News that the agency is hopeful the city's mayor, Eric Adams (D), will reform the current sanctuary policies that prevent the agency from working with local law enforcement.

"ERO New York City will continue to uphold its mission to protect the citizens of New York by removing threats to public safety. We always stand ready to work with our law enforcement partners without condition and welcome Mayor Adams' recent comments about opening the door to cooperation," Ferguson stated.

During a February town hall meeting, Adams said, "Those small numbers [of migrants] that have committed crimes, we need to modify the sanctuary city law that if you commit a felony or violent act, we should be able to turn you over to ICE and have you deported."

Adams has claimed that the city's current laws prevent him from removing migrants that have poured into the city over the last year.

Republican state lawmakers previously proposed legislation that, if passed, would effectively reverse New York City's sanctuary policies.

Canarsie Brooklyn NY \nDuring a Town Hall meeting, a resident raised his concerns over illegal scooters, @NYPDChiefPatrol John Chell states he heard those concerns by other residents and have been taking action and so far seized over 50k illegal scooters and cars off the streets,\u2026
— (@)

Anything else?

Fabbricatore stated that migrants are incentivized to relocate to jurisdictions with sanctuary policies.

"Sanctuary policy definitely does not protect United States citizens; it protects criminal illegal aliens," Fabbricatore added. "A lot of these sanctuary cities say that they are protecting immigrants. Legal immigrants don't need protection from ICE because they're doing the right thing. ICE is not going after them. ICE normally goes after those who commit crimes inside the United States. So illegal aliens who, on top of being illegally here, have also committed crimes."

Feere stated that passing legislation that requires sanctuary jurisdictions to honor ICE detainer requests should be the Republican Party's "top priority." He called it "unacceptable" that conservative lawmakers have not already implemented such legislation.

"The issue of sanctuary jurisdictions has gone on for quite some time, and it's amazing to me that Congress hasn't put an end to the nonsense. We have had Congresses where the Republican Party was in control and yet there was not any effort to pass a bill that requires states to honor ICE detainers," he stated. "When you have a situation with states that are choosing to ignore the federal government, our country really starts to fall apart."

"It also frustrates me that the Department of Homeland Security has allowed this to go on as long as it has. There's a saying within DHS, which is that, 'We are one DHS,'" he continued, noting that ICE, Customs and Border Protection, Border Patrol, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the Transportation Security Administration, and the Coast Guard are all under DHS.

"Why is it that the other agencies within the DHS continue to do business with these states that are undermining one of its sister agencies?" Feere questioned. "Shouldn't these agencies stick up for ICE? And explain to states like California, Massachusetts that you can't pick and choose which part of DHS you want to work with? Either you work with us all, or you don't."

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DHS enlists anti-ICE immigration detention official who doesn't want illegal migrants behind bars



The Biden administration's Department of Homeland Security recently enlisted Michelle Brané to serve as the agency's immigration detention ombudsman, according to a Wednesday announcement from the DHS.

Brané previously served as the executive director for the department's Family Reunification Task Force and has been an outspoken critic of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

In several posts on X, Brané accused ICE of using "abusive enforcement."

"ICE already gets billions of taxpayer money to detain asylum seekers," she wrote in 2019. "They do not need more."

In another post from 2017, Brané stated that the agency "can not implement detention humanely."

"Time to use alternatives and stop using a prison model for civil immigration cases," she declared.

Former ICE acting Director Thomas Homan previously stated, "If we wait for [non-criminal undocumented immigrants] to violate yet another law against a citizen of this country, then it's too late. We shouldn't wait for them to become a criminal."

Brané responded to Homan's comments by writing on X, "Sounds like a police state to me."

She repeatedly slammed the Trump administration, claiming the former president's DHS separated migrant children from their parents.

"Yet again - the cruelty of this administration and border policies that punish those seeking protection is shocking. Separating newborns from their mother and lying about hospital policy," Brané said in 2020.

In her new position with the DHS, Brané will be responsible for scrutinizing ICE's detention of illegal migrants.

Jon Feere, director of investigations with the Center for Immigration Studies and former ICE chief of staff under the Trump administration, told the New York Post that tapping Brané for the position is like "putting an arsonist in charge of conducting oversight of the U.S. Forest Service."

"My guess is that she'll use her new authority to undermine ICE detention efforts, which will come in the form of excessive audits and releases of illegal aliens based on unsupported and phony complaints," Feere said.

John Fabbricatore, a former ICE field office director, told the Post that the DHS' decision to appoint Brané "raises critical questions about the direction and priorities of ICE under the current administration."

"Ms. Brane's previous assertions that efforts by ICE to pre-emptively arrest illegal aliens to prevent further crimes equate to a 'police state' underscores a problematic perspective for someone about to hold a significant position in a law enforcement agency," Fabbricatore said.

The DHS did not respond to the Post's request for comment.

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