A4 EZ M2 THE WASHINGTON POST.SUNDAY, MAY 8 , 2022
“You know what
happens to these
individuals? They
are either expelled
under the Title 42
of the CDC, or they
are placed into
immigration
enforcement
proceedings. They
make their claims
under the law. If
those claims don’t prevail, they
are promptly removed from the
United States.”
— Homeland Security
Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas,
during an interview with Bret
Baier on “Fox News Sunday,”
May 1
This appearance by Mayorkas
sent former Trump immigration
guru Stephen Miller into a
Twitter apoplexy. “He repeated
one of his most appalling and
galling lies: that the illegal
families, UACs & single adults
he’s releasing en masse face
future removal,” Miller wrote in
a Twitter thread. “THEY DON’T.
Once released, they’re on
HONOR SYSTEM & here to stay.”
The operative word in
Mayorkas’s comment is
“promptly.” That’s certainly open
to interpretation.
“Do you know what ‘release’
means, Bret? Because release
doesn’t mean just ‘let go into the
United States,’” Mayorkas said
on Fox. “It means, if we do not
detain individuals, they’re
placed on alternatives to
detention, and they are in
immigration enforcement
proceedings. And if they do not
appear for their immigration
enforcement proceedings, they
are a priority for enforcement
action. That's what we’re
speaking about.”
Well, that’s the theory. Let’s
run through the numbers and
see what has happened. It’s
complicated — but interesting.
Overview
All noncitizens released from
Immigration and Customs
Enforcement (ICE) custody into
the United States are assigned to
what is called the non-detained
docket and must report to ICE at
least once a year. As of August
2020, ICE says, there are over 3.
million people assigned to the
non-detained docket. There are
nearly 1.8 million outstanding
cases in immigration courts,
with an average wait of 855 days,
according to the Transactional
Records Access Clearinghouse
(TRAC) at Syracuse University.
Meanwhile, according to a
declaration in federal court filed
by ICE official Peter Berg, as of
Jan. 20, 2021, 1.18 million
noncitizens on the non-detained
docket were subject to final
orders for deportation but had
not left the country. “These final
orders might include cases that
are pending in federal court,
cases where noncitizens have
temporary stays of removal, or
cases where noncitizens cannot
be removed because some
countries refuse to accept the
return of their nationals,” he
noted. He said that about 18
percent of the people in the
previous year subject to such
orders were deported.
A deeper look can be found in
statistics published by the
Department of Homeland
Security known as enforcement
life cycle reports. We were
guided through our examination
of the numbers by Jessica Bolter,
an associate policy analyst at the
Migration Policy Institute, a D.C.
think tank that does research
and analysis to improve
immigration and integration
policies.
First, some immigration lingo.
U.S. border officials report
enforcement actions based on
the type of “encounter” they had
with a migrant. Someone could
be apprehended while
attempting to cross the border,
without authorization, between
legal ports of entry.
“Apprehensions” are carried
out by the U.S. Border Patrol. A
migrant could be determined to
be “inadmissible” upon reaching
a port of entry and quickly
withdraw an application seeking
entry. But others are permitted
to make a case that they should
be permitted to remain in the
United States.
Encounters only record
people who illegally cross the
border and end up in DHS’s
publicly released data. An
unknown number — known as
“got-aways” — are spotted by
Border Patrol agents but not
captured. The Washington Post
in 2021 said at least 1,000 people
every day sneak into the United
States. But DHS does not
officially release such figures.Some cases sooner resolved
Broadly, the most recent
enforcement life cycle numbers,
through the first quarter of fiscal
2022 and obtained from a DHS
official, show that for fiscal year
2013, when about 460,
people were encountered at the
border, about 90 percent of the
cases have been resolved, with
most being removed from the
country and about 9 percent
being permitted to stay. About 3
percent have been told to leave
but cannot be found.
But for fiscal 2019, only about
37 percent of the 950,000 cases
have been resolved, with a small
percentage permitted to stay.
The rest are still in the country.
They are going through
immigration enforcement
proceedings or have been
ordered to leave and have not
left or cannot be found. The pace
was quicker for fiscal 2020 — 68
percent resolved — and much
slower for fiscal year 2021. Only
10 percent have been resolved.
These overall numbers
obscure that nationality, and
demographic characteristics
make a difference in how quickly
cases are resolved. More than 8
in 10 encounters with Mexicans
in fiscal year 2019 were resolved
by March 2020, midway through
the fiscal year, mostly by
ordering the migrants to leave,
records show. Bolter said she
would consider that to be
prompt.
By contrast, only 18 percent of
encounters with migrants from
El Salvador, Guatemala and
Honduras in fiscal 2019 had
been resolved in the same
period, with most being ordered
to leave the United States. “Most
of the rest were still being
processed, and a smaller share of
unresolved cases were those in
which a final removal order had
been issued but no removal had
been executed,” Bolter said. “I
would not characterize this rate
of resolution as prompt.”
She noted that the differences
were even starker when looking
at single adults vs. families. For
families from northern Central
American countries, only 13percent of encounters from fiscal
2016 had been resolved by
March 2020 — most were
allowed to stay in the United
States — and only 5 percent of
encounters from 2019 had been
resolved. But for single adults
from the same countries, about
three-quarters of encounters in
2016 — and in 2019 — had been
resolved by March 2020, with a
significant percentage deported.Border surge under Biden
Of course, 2020 data means we
are still looking at what
happened during the Trump
administration. Border
encounters have soared since
President Biden took office, and
DHS has not yet published
detailed enforcement life cycle
reports for 2021 and 2022.
But we have information on
how DHS is handling these cases
from government filings in a
Texas lawsuit and other
published information. We were
guided through these numbers
by Andrew R. Arthur, a resident
fellow in law and policy for the
Center for Immigration Studies,
which supports stricter
immigration limits and a merit-
based immigration system.
Since February 2021, almost
2.5 million people have been
encountered at the border — but
more than 1.34 million have
been immediately expelled
under emergency public health
powers, tapped by President
Donald Trump under a law
known as Title 42. Biden has
tried to end use of this law, but
the administration has been
blocked in the courts.
That leaves more than 1.
million additional people who
are being processed through the
immigration system. If they
might be deemed inadmissible,
they are supposed to be
detained. But with detention
facilities under stress because of
coronavirus protocols, the
administration has instead
released them for processing
down the road.
Initially, many were given
what were known as a “notice to
report” (NTR), a preliminary
step to receiving a “notice to
appear” (NTA) in court for
processing. According to a DHS
letter released in January by
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.),104,171 noncitizens were
released with NTRs through
Aug. 31, with a requirement to
check in within 60 days. Of
those, slightly less than half,
49,859, had checked in with ICE
— but the rest had not.
Of the 49,859 who had
checked in with ICE, 16,293, or
about 15 percent of the total, had
been placed in deportation
proceedings through the
issuance of NTAs.Alternatives to detention
The Biden administration ended
the practice of issuing NTRs and
has stepped up enrolling people
in an “alternatives to detention”
(ATD) program, such as ankle
monitor, voice recognition
check-ins, or smartphone app
check-ins. ATD has expanded in
recent years, but a 2020 report
from ICE Enforcement and
Operations Removal said “ATD
experienced an increase in
absconder rates among both
single adult enrollees and family
units, and the overall absconder
rate of 33 percent in FY 2020
demonstrated the continuing
challenges associated with the
growth of this program in recent
years.”
At the end of fiscal 2020,
90,000 people were enrolled in
ATD, for an average of 14 to 18
months, the ICE report said.
That was an increase from
23,000 in fiscal 2014. But the
report said ICE lacks the
resources to monitor
participants and to locate and
arrest people who disappear —
problems that “will only be
exacerbated by enrolling greater
numbers of participants without
the addition of appropriate case
management and enforcement
resources.” (The Biden
administration has been late in
releasing the 2021 version of this
report.)
ICE statistics indicate 136,
people were enrolled in ATD by
the end of fiscal 2021. And just
in the first six months of the
2022 fiscal year, the Biden
administration has placed more
than 80,000 people in the ATD
program, according to CBP
statistics.
The White House this year
requested a 17 percent increase
in the program’s budget, saying
as many as 200,000 people couldbe enrolled by October. But,
according to ICE data obtained
by Syracuse University’s TRAC,
the number of people under ATD
was more than 227,000 as of
April 23.
Eventually, people under ATD
are supposed to be issued a
“notice to appear” that would
commence the formal
immigration process. In effect,
they are granted “parole” — a
term that means something
different under immigration law
from in the criminal justice
system — that allows them to
stay in the country while they
wait to learn if they can remain
indefinitely. “In general, a
noncitizen who is paroled into
the United States is not placed
into removal proceedings until
the parole is terminated,” the
DHS letter to Johnson said.
From the start of Biden’s
presidency through March 2022,
DHS has released 836,
people encountered at the
border, according to the court
filings. In addition, 157,
unaccompanied children from
countries other than Mexico or
Canada have been placed with
sponsors such as relatives,
according to Arthur’s
calculations.
The numbers keep rising. In
March, for instance, court filings
show that more than 220,
people were encountered and
almost half were expelled under
Title 42. Of the remaining, more
than 80,000 were released into
the United States. Of those
released, about 66,
“applicants for admission” were
released by U.S. Customs and
Border Protection. NTAs were
given to 31,453 of those people,
while the rest were paroled, with
an expectation that they would
receive NTAs in the future.
Separately, 14,000 people were
released by ICE, most under
orders of recognizance.
The track record of the Biden
administration so far suggests
people who eventually are
ordered deported may be able to
wait a long time before action is
taken.
During the 2021 fiscal year
that ended Sept. 30, ICE
recorded 59,011 deportations,
down from 185,884 in 2020.
(About 29,000 deportations
were made in the 7^1 / 2 monthsafter Biden instituted new
policies.) ICE’s Enforcement and
Removal Operations made about
74,082 administrative arrests
during fiscal 2021, down from
104,000 during fiscal 2020 and
an average of 148,000 annually
from 2017 through 2019.
The administration has said it
is prioritizing the removal of
immigrants who pose public
safety and national security
threats. That suggests people
who do not pose such threats
have little fear of being removed
promptly, contrary to what
Mayorkas claimed.
In a statement, a DHS
spokesman said Mayorkas was
referring to a very narrow
instance — what happens once
an undocumented immigrant
loses his or her case.
“As Secretary Mayorkas
stated, ‘If those claims don’t
prevail, they are promptly
removed from the United
States,’” the statement said. “The
data shows that to be true.
Ninety-four percent of people
encountered at our southwest
land border in FY 2020 and
placed in Title 8 [removal]
proceedings who did not make
successful claims for relief were
repatriated by the end of
calendar year 2021, and 86
percent of those encountered in
FY2021 who did not make
successful claims were
repatriated by the end of CY- This data includes persons
of all nationalities encountered.”
Our reporting demonstrated
how long it can take to get to
that point, and the statement
acknowledged that “due to
existing immigration court
backlogs, the process for hearing
and deciding non-detained
asylum cases currently takes
several years on average.” The
statement noted that DHS and
the Justice Department in
March issued a new regulation
to “conclude certain asylum
cases in months instead of years,
meaning that those deemed
ineligible for asylum can be
removed more quickly.”
Mayorkas also recently issued a
memo outlining ways to
promptly remove individuals
without a legal basis to remain
in the United States, such as
maximizing the use of a process
known as expedited removal.
The Pinocchio Test
Mayorkas, in his remarks, gave
the impression of a smooth-
running machine: Noncitizens
who illegally entered the United
States are given their day in
court and, if they lose, they
promptly are deported. But the
reality is much different. Certain
nationalities, such as Mexicans,
appear on a faster track to
deportation. But others are not.
Indeed, more than 1 million
people who entered the country
without proper documents have
been given deportation orders —
and still have not left. Others
have disappeared — a problem
that may have become worse as
tens of thousands of
undocumented immigrants are
released into the country each
month.
DHS, in its defense of
Mayorkas’s remarks, said he was
referring only to what happens
when an undocumented
immigrant loses his or her case.
That’s a distinction that most
viewers probably missed.
Mayorkas earns Three
Pinocchios.Mayorkas’s ‘promptly’ in reference to immigrant claims sidesteps a deeper issue
The Fact
Checker
GLENN
KESSLER
AMANDA ANDRADE-RHOADES FOR THE WASHINGTON POST
Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas said on a recent Sunday news show that
undocumented immigrants whose claims don’t prevail “are promptly removed from the United States.”BY FRANCES STEAD SELLERSAn unusual cluster of acute
hepatitis cases among previously
healthy children around the
world, including some in the
United States, has created con-
cerns for doctors, scientists and
parents. The cause is unknown,
but some scientists believe the
outbreak may be linked to a
common virus that can cause
colds, gastrointestinal distress
and other minor ailments.
While some children have been
very sick and at least six have
died, the cases remain extremely
rare and are not at this point a
cause for alarm, doctors say.
Here’s what you need to know:
Q: What is hepatitis, and how
many children has it sickened?
A: The Centers for Disease Con-
trol and Prevention said Friday it
is investigating 109 cases of se-
vere hepatitis of unknown cause
in children dating back to Octo-
ber. Five of the children have
died, officials said. Cases have
been detected in 25 states. Hepa-
titis refers to inflammation of the
liver, an organ that performs vital
functions such as processing nu-
trients, filtering blood and fight-
ing infections.
As of May 1, the World Health
Organization has recorded more
than 220 cases in children ages 1
month to 16 in 20 countries. An
additional 50 cases are under
investigation, according to a
WHO media briefing Wednesday.
Eighteen children required liver
transplants and one died. Twelve
cases have been reported in the
United States, the WHO said.
Typically, alcohol use, toxins,
some medications and certain
medical conditions including vi-
ral infections can cause hepatitis,
according to the CDC. In the
United States, the most common
types of viral hepatitis are hepati-
tis A, B and C — which were all
ruled out among the children
who had hepatitis, the CDC said.
Effective vaccines are available
for A and B.Q: What are the symptoms of
hepatitis in children?A: Officials stress severe hepati-
tis in young children remains
rare and they urge parents not to
panic but be on alert for unusual
signs including jaundice — which
causes yellowing of the skin and
whites of the eyes — dark urine
and light stool.
Symptoms in Alabama chil-
dren ranged from gastrointesti-
nal problems such vomiting and
diarrhea to upper respiratory
symptoms, according to the CDC.
Eight showed yellowing of the
whites of their eyes. Seven had
enlarged livers and one had en-
cephalopathy, or evidence of im-
pact on the brain, the CDC said.
Three of the children suffered
liver failure, and two needed liver
transplants. All have recovered,
officials said.Q: What causes hepatitis in
children?
A: It is not yet clear that the
adenovirus is responsible for
these hepatitis cases. Adenovi-
ruses are common, causing a
range of symptoms from colds
and stomach upsets to pinkeyeand, in rare cases, to conditions
that affect the brain or spinal
cord.
One subtype, adenovirus 41,
causes pediatric gastroenteritis
typically with diarrhea, vomiting
and fever and often accompanied
by respiratory symptoms, and
was found in some of the children
in Alabama. It has been known to
cause hepatitis in immunocom-
promised children, but officials
said none of the children in
Alabama were immunocompro-
mised.
About half the U.S. children
whose hepatitis cases are under
investigation had a confirmed
adenovirus infection, officials
said, though it is not known to
have caused hepatitis.
In the past, doctors may have
overlooked adenovirus-related
hepatitis in otherwise healthy
children, said Ryan Fisher, pedi-
atric gastroenterologist and
transplant hepatologist at Chil-
dren’s Mercy in Kansas City, Mo.
If a patient has signs of hepatitis,
but it is mild and resolves on its
own, doctors do not routinely doviral studies beyond looking for
hepatitis A, B or C.
“It could be that we miss many
cases... because we don’t check
for it and the children recover
uneventfully,” Fisher said.
At Wednesday’s WHO briefing,
Philippa Easterbrook, an infec-
tious-disease specialist, said in-
vestigators are looking into “all
possible infectious and noninfec-
tious causes.”
CDC officials said they do not
yet know what role other factors,
such as environmental exposure,
medications or other infections
might play in the illnesses.
None of the children in Ala-
bama were infected with covid- 19
or had a history of having had
covid-19, officials said. Officials
are working to determine
through blood tests whether
some of the children had prior
unknown coronavirus infections.
None of the children in Ala-
bama had received a coronavirus
vaccine, officials said.
“Covid-19 vaccination is not
the cause of these illnesses,” said
Jay Butler, the CDC’s deputy di-rector for infectious diseases.
“We hope that this information
helps clarify some of the specula-
tion circulating online.”
Ongoing studies will focus on
understanding the pathogen and
the affected children’s immune
responses and genetics, as well as
comparing the rate of adenovirus
among hospitalized children
with hepatitis to the rate among
other hospitalized children.Q: How worried should parents
be about these cases?
A: Officials are urging parents
not to panic. Doctors said to see a
pediatrician if children are exhib-
iting any unusual symptoms, in-
cluding abdominal discomfort,
vomiting, dark urine and pale
stool.
“As a parent, I’m not sure we
need to spend our time worrying
about this condition. This is still
rare enough that we don’t need to
implement new steps,” Fisher
said. At the same time, he said,
doctors are keeping a close eye
out: “The more that we can un-
derstand, the better off we are.”What you need to know about the unusual cases of hepatitis in children
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