A Biden administration official with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) who favors alternatives to detention (ATD) of illegal immigrants has been asked to testify in front of the House Judiciary Committee.

In a letter Monday to Claire Trickler-McNulty, assistant director of ICE’s Office of Immigration Program Evaluation, Judiciary Chair Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Calif., the chair of the Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement, want her to explain why she favors ATD “during a time of historic illegal immigration.”

They wrote ICE is detaining and removing from the U.S. only a fraction of illegal immigrants, especially those with criminal records, adding in the 2023 fiscal year, ICE removed 41% fewer illegal immigrants with criminal convictions and criminal charges than in the 2020 FY — and nearly 60% fewer than in FY 2019.

“This decrease in removals and detention coincides with at least 617,607 criminal aliens on ICE’s nondetained docket, meaning that aliens with criminal convictions or pending criminal charges are out on American streets and ‘free to reoffend,’” the lawmakers wrote. “Meanwhile, the number of aliens with final orders of removal grew to more than 1.3 million as of [Dec. 10] and the nondetained docket exceeded 6.2 million cases.”

They wrote that Trickler-McNulty voiced support of ATD during a webinar with the Migration Policy Institute in September 2021, where she stated, “We should be looking very critically about how we use detention, who’s placed in detention, how long they are in detention, and what we can do to use it, you know, as judiciously as possible.”

They wrote she also stated that ICE “should always be looking to see if there is an alternative that would be appropriate” and noted that ICE should use its detention resources “only when absolutely necessary.”

The lawmakers noted a leaked memo in a draft ICE report in 2020 concluded that ATD “has little value, is of significant expense and saw the vast majority of illegal immigrants enrolled in the program for their entire immigration proceedings eventually abscond.”

They told the story of an illegal immigrant who was a high-profile criminal gang member who allegedly “absconded from ATD” after he cut off the ankle monitor in Colorado and went on to commit crimes in the U.S. They said ATD includes a new program for illegal immigrant “young adults” and family units, in which ICE officials admitted there have been zero consequences for aliens who have failed to comply with the conditions of their ATD.

“The lack of consequences and accountability is emblematic of the Biden Administration’s open-borders policies that reward illegal aliens to the detriment of American citizens and legal immigrants,” the lawmakers wrote.

They requested Trickler-McNulty respond to their letter and request a date for a transcribed interview no later than April 8.

Newsmax reached out to ICE for comment.

© 2024 Newsmax. All rights reserved.