Despite vow to end ‘catch and release’, migrants being freed

Standing on the bluffs of Roma, Texas on a May afternoon, two border patrol agents look out over the meandering Rio Grande River that separates Mexico from the United States and recall a time when the scene was far less tranquil.

Last fall, during the waning months of the Obama administration, hundreds of immigrants crossed the river on rafts at this point each day, many willingly handing themselves over to immigration authorities in hopes of being released into the United States to await court proceedings that would decide their fate. Now, the agents look out on an empty landscape.

sss Foot paths, up from the water, have started to disappear under growing brush, with only the stray baby shoe or toothbrush serving as reminders of that migrant flood.

The reason for the change, the agents say, is a perception in Mexico and Central America that President Donald Trump has ended the practice known as “catch-andrelease,” in which immigrants caught in the United States without proper documents were released to live free, often for years, as their cases ran through the court system.

Now, would-be border violators know “they'll be detained and then turned right back around,” said one of the two agents, Marlene Castro. “It’s not worth it anymore,” she said. Ms Castro was echoing her boss, homeland security secretary John Kelly, who said on a visit to El Paso, Texas in April, “We have ended dangerous catch-and-release enforcement policies.”

But immigration attorneys, government statistics and even some officials from US Immigration and Customs Enforcem ent, which falls under Mr Kelly, suggest that despite the DHS chief ’s statement, there has been no clear change to the catch-andrelease policy.

That’s because there are legal constraints on who can be detained and for how long, due to a shortage of beds and a court ruling limiting the stay of women and children in custody to 21 days.

A separate court ruling limits detention time for immigrants whose countries refuse to repatriate them. He noted in a February memorandum that asylum seekers that have proven they have a “credible fear” of returning home could be candidates for release if they present “neither a security risk nor a risk of absconding.”