AG Moody: ICE deposition video is evidence of Biden’s immigration plan

(The Center Square) – Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody made public an ICE training video obtained by her office as part of the litigation process in a lawsuit the state filed against the Biden administration in September.

The partially redacted video, she said, is “evidence of President Joe Biden’s intentional destruction of the nation’s immigration system.”

“Since day one of his administration, President Biden has purposefully broken down the structure and law enforcement at our nation’s border with Mexico – all while confusing and misleading the nation about this devious, reckless scheme,” she said. “If Title 42 ends, the administration may blame the mass surge of unvetted migrants on this rule’s remission, but don’t be fooled. They’re playing fast and loose with the lives of Americans to advance an absurd political agenda.”

Title 42 is a Trump-era public health policy that allowed border agents to immediately expel some illegal crossers over concerns they could spread COVID-19. The Biden administration planned to end enforcement of Title 42 on Wednesday but that’s been put on hold by the U.S. Supreme Court.

“As our litigation uncovered, this has been this administration’s plan all along. They’ve let in and lost track of hundreds of thousands of inadmissible immigrants, and it will get worse if Title 42 expires,” Moody said. “We will continue our litigation efforts to force Biden to follow the law and try to mitigate this national disaster.”

The ICE training videos describe the logistical problems resulting from BP agents releasing illegal foreign nationals into the U.S. without charging documents. Without a charging document, it becomes nearly impossible for ICE agents in the future to locate and remove people in the U.S. illegally.

Excerpts from the redacted training videos include a male official explaining that since March 2021, CBP officials released noncitizens at the border “under prosecutorial discretion or humanitarian parole directing them to report to the nearest ICE office where they intend to reside.

“This process does not address the underlining challenges regarding ICE’s congressionally-mandated responsibility to locate, arrest and place into removal proceedings those noncitizens who are not in possession of a valid, unexpired entry document,” the official continued. “Under Operation Horizon, ICE law enforcement officers will identify, locate and place into removal proceedings those noncitizens who CBP released into the United States after March 15, 2021.”

On how Operation Horizon has been conducted, another ICE official said, “you know over the summer, we had well over 150,000 folks come in. They were issued a piece of paper that said, ‘find somebody in ICE,’ and that was pretty much it. There was no processing. I know this isn’t something that you guys asked for, and I can assure you that no one in the criminal alien program asked for it either.”

The following clips are exclusive footage, obtained by the Florida Attorney General’s Office, of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement training videos and virtual meetings regarding Operation Horizon, revealing that ICE lost more than 150,000 illegal immigrants entering the United States without proper processing procedures.

The footage is part of a case titled Florida v. United States, No. 3:21-cv-1066.

Florida Attorney General’s Office

The video was released after Moody previously released videos and transcripts of sworn depositions of U.S. Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz, who testified in August that the border was in a crisis, and of an ICE official who testified that ICE agents were removing seven times fewer people who were in the U.S. illegally than they did 10 years ago.

Her office also uncovered a plan by BP to release foreign nationals into the U.S. illegally once the public health authority Title 42 ended.

Her case was filed after CBP agents encountered more than 2.76 million people entering the U.S. illegally, including 98 who were on the terrorist watchlist, in fiscal 2022.

Tom Homan, former acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, told The Center Square, “The Biden administration has consistently violated their responsibility to secure our border. It has long been clear that our borders are open – now these numbers should erase any remaining doubt. We have simply never seen these numbers before in our history, and the Biden open-borders policies are the reason.”

Former COO and acting Commissioner of CBP Mark Morgan told The Center Square the administration’s policies are endangering Americans’ lives and Congress must act.

Because of “the overwhelming numbers of illegal aliens and otherwise inadmissible aliens flooding our border,” he said, Border Patrol agents and resources “have been pulled off the front line, away from their national security mission. This has left the border wide open for the cartels to exploit – pushing deadly drugs, criminals, and potential national security threats across our borders.

“It’s time for Congress to step up and do their job by holding this administration accountable for the chaos and carnage they have unleashed on our southwest border. Their first action should be to impeach Secretary Mayorkas, who has served as the administration’s chief architect of their open-border policies and continues to lie to the American people about it. How many more Americans have to die and suffer before we say enough is enough?”