Fact check: Rubio says Biden 'will not detain the people who enter this country illegally'
Is President Joe Biden the first U.S. president ever who will not detain immigrants in the U.S. illegally? That's what Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., said on Fox News Sunday.
Posted — UpdatedIs President Joe Biden the first U.S. president ever who will not detain immigrants in the U.S. illegally? That’s what Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., said.
"Well, the realistic path forward if we want to end this crisis begins by Joe Biden reversing the executive orders that he made," Rubio said March 3 on "Fox News Sunday."
"Every single one of them was designed to reverse a Trump policy. All those executive orders that are basically for the first time in American history we have a president who will not detain the people who enter this country illegally."
"Within days of his inauguration, President Biden placed a 100-day moratorium on deportations, halted construction of the border wall, dismantled Remain in Mexico and ended the Asylum Cooperative Agreements," Rubio wrote. Rubio also noted that in 2022, Biden ended the use of Title 42, a pandemic-era policy that permitted rapid expulsions. That change, Rubio wrote, "signaled an unwillingness to deter cartels and coyotes, so more migrants headed north."
Immigration experts said Rubio mischaracterized Biden’s actions, ignoring the number of migrants detained and deported during Biden’s presidency and the actions of previous presidents.
"Every president in the last century has released some migrants who crossed the border," said Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, policy director at the American Immigration Council, an immigrant rights advocacy group.
"As of February, (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) had approximately 39,000 migrants in detention nationwide," said Colleen Putzel-Kavanaugh, an associate policy analyst at the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute.
Putzel-Kavanaugh said the U.S. doesn’t have enough detention space for the record number of migrants at the border.
"It is the U.S. Congress that determines and funds the number of detention beds that ICE has at its disposal," she said. "And while the administration can set priorities on who to detain, once ICE capacity is overwhelmed, immigration authorities must adjust priorities."
We’ll examine each of the Biden actions Rubio highlighted.
100-day deportation moratorium
The memo specified that the pause meant to divert resources to the border to carry out more expulsions and deportations of recent border crossers. People who posed a national security or public safety threat, or who entered the U.S. after Nov. 1, 2020, would be prioritized for expulsion.
The memo said it did not prohibit the apprehension or detention of anyone who wasn’t part of a priority category.
Halted border wall construction
Dismantled ‘Remain in Mexico’
The program was stopped and restarted several times because of court decisions until the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June 2022 that it could be terminated. The program, which formally ended in October 2022, had enrolled 81,000 migrants.
"Remain in Mexico was barely operational in January 2021 and Biden returned vastly more people to Mexico using Title 42 than were removed under Remain in Mexico," said David Bier, a Cato Institute immigration expert. "He then cooperated with the court order to restart and for several months in 2022 was returning more people than at any point in 2020."
Ended the Asylum Cooperative Agreements
"Not a single person was subject to an (Asylum Cooperative Agreements) after March 20, 2020," said Reichlin-Melnick, from the American Immigration Council.
Ending Title 42
Immigration experts also said the program was automatically terminated when the COVID-19 public health emergency expired.
"It was not an immigration policy," Reichlin-Melnick said, "and Biden kept it around long past the point that anyone was seriously arguing that it was being used for public health reasons."
PolitiFact ruling
Rubio said Biden’s executive orders meant "for the first time in American history we have a president who will not detain people who enter the country illegally."
Rubio’s claim ignores detentions and deportations under Biden, and the millions of releases under previous presidents. Experts said the U.S. doesn’t have enough detention space for all migrants.
Experts said Rubio overstated the effects Biden’s executive actions had on illegal immigration. Some of the actions terminated already defunct or suspended programs; other actions were temporary or had questionable effect on migration numbers.
The orders also didn’t prevent detention of migrants. As of February, ICE had about 39,000 migrants in detention nationwide, an expert said.
We rate Rubio’s claim False.
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