Some 11,000 Migrants Fled US Detention Program Alternatives In Fiscal Year 2020 - Official

Sumaira FH Published May 13, 2021 | 09:30 PM

WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 13th May, 2021) Some 11,000 of the immigrants that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detained during Fiscal Year 2020 fled from officials after being enrolled in the agency's Alternatives to Detention (ATD) programs, ICE Acting Director Tae Johnson said during a congressional hearing on Thursday.

"Based on the number of individuals that we enrolled in alternatives to detention in FY20, we had about 11,000 individual abscond from the program, and so far in [Fiscal Year] 2021 we've had about 3,000 or 2,700, this is through March, abscond from the ATD program," Johnson told the US House Subcommittee on Homeland Security.

ATD programs provide supervised release and enhanced monitoring for a subset of immigrants who are not considered threats to public safety or national security, and have been released pending a decision on whether they should be deported, he said.

Johnson added in his statement that there are 95,160 participants enrolled in ATD programs as of April, up nearly 12 percent from the beginning of the year. The program is designed as a flight-mitigation tool that helps increase compliance with release conditions, he added.