With all the focus on the historic immigration crisis brought on by the Biden’s mismanagement of our southern border, little attention has been given to immigration enforcement in the interior of our country. Finding, detaining, and removing people who have snuck across the border, evaded Border Patrol, overstayed a visa, ignored a final order of removal, committed additional crimes, or represent active security threats are all the critical functions of interior enforcement. 

Yet, this administration, particularly Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Mayorkas, continues to dismantle the federal government’s ability to enforce immigration law. More specifically, Mayorkas has almost completely decimated the country’s premier cross-border law enforcement agency: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). 

I would know, after spending almost my entire career working for ICE or its predecessor agency the Immigration and Naturalization Service, I served as the agency’s first director. Today, I hardly recognize the institution. For starters, Mayorkas issued a shocking priorities memorandum in September 2021 that severely limited who ICE was allowed to arrest. 

And when I say criminal illegal aliens, I don’t simply mean people that crossed the border illegally—though that certainly is a crime in and of itself. See Title 8, USC 1325. No, I am referring to people who have entered the country illegally and have been convicted of a crime or are subject to pending charges. 

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That’s because for Biden and his officials, it isn’t enough that these people have entered the country illegally—or in some cases reentered after being formally deported. In many cases, the Democrats don’t even care if these same people go on to commit serious crimes in the United States. No, only after they have been convicted of the worst crimes—when it is already too late to act—can these criminals be targeted by ICE. But it doesn’t have to be this way. Many of these crimes could easily be prevented if ICE was simply allowed to do its job and enforce the immigration law as written.  

Secretary Mayorkas doesn’t see it this way. As he recently put it: "Being in the country illegally, on its own, [is] not enough reason for ICE to arrest them." In other words, the unelected and unaccountable Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security made a unilateral decision to overrule the laws written and enacted by the people’s representatives in Congress and signed by their president. Today, this truly lawless move has led to immigration officers simply not enforcing our laws. 

I testified against Mayorkas’s move to undermine ICE last year as an expert witness for the State of Texas. Over the course of a few hours, I explained to District Court Judge Tipton how this new instruction did not allow ICE agents to do their job, and fortunately, we won that case. Since then, however, the administration has appealed the decision to a higher court. This won’t change the ruling, of course—the U.S. code is clear on who should be arrested and detained, and Mayorkas wrongfully instructed ICE officers to ignore the law—but it has bought the Biden administration more time. 

This is bad news for the American people. Since the Mayorkas memorandum came into force, ICE has reported the lowest numbers of arrests and deportations in the history of the agency. It shouldn’t come as a surprise, but in that same time period, America has witnessed historic illegal immigration on the southern border. 

This alone demonstrates that ICE is essential, and yet Biden dropped the Trump administration’s suit against sanctuary jurisdictions shortly after he came into office. Even though Mayorkas has said that arresting serious criminals is a national public safety priority, he and Biden have stood silent while hundreds of jurisdictions across the country have become sanctuary states, counties, and cities, where laws and policies have been put in place that prevent ICE officers from bringing criminals to justice. Many of these jurisdictions will not even give ICE officers access to taxpayer funded jails that harbor known illegal aliens within their facilities. Instead, corrupt Soros-funded prosecutors simply release these criminals back on to the streets to reoffend. 

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At the time of this writing, there are a total of 12 states that have declared themselves sanctuary states: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington. One hundred forty-six counties have done the same. Additionally, several states have recently passed laws that prohibit ICE from detaining criminal illegals waiting for an immigration hearing within their borders. All of this with the tacit consent of the DHS, of course. 

The truth is, as long as Biden and Mayorkas remain in power, the border surge will continue. Every day, thousands of immigrants will cross the border illegally, and thousands more inadmissible aliens will be directed through ports of entry despite the fact that they obviously don’t qualify for asylum. Worse still, even if these illegal aliens go on to commit serious crimes, ICE will not be able to arrest and deport them, thus leading to even more new arrivals. 

It truly is a broken system, and that’s because it is broken by design. People that say this administration has failed on immigration don’t understand. Biden and Mayorkas haven’t failed at all. Quite the opposite, their plan is succeeding.