Press Releases

Today, Congressman Van Drew (R-NJ) was joined by 77 of his House Republican colleagues in sending a letter to Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas urging DHS to reverse its decision to rescind the Department's Designating Aliens for Expedited Removal, or "expedited removal" policy. 

"Our border patrol agents are overwhelmed, fentanyl is pouring into and destroying our communities, and migrants with criminal convictions are making their way past our southern border," said Congressman Van Drew. "Under expedited removal, hundreds of thousands of illegal migrants have been deported in a timely manner. The Biden Administration's decision to rescind this policy and Title 42 strips our country of any effective deterrents to disincentivize illegal immigration. I urge the Biden Administration to reverse its decision and allow expedited removal to remain in place for the safety of Americans and the security of our southern border." 

"Expedited removal is a crucial tool used to quickly remove illegal aliens from the United States," said Dan Stein, President of the Federation for American Immigration Reform. "The Biden administration's decision to end the use of this program shows that they are fully committed to ending effective immigration enforcement in this country. The damage done to the U.S. by President Biden's immigration decisions is about to become even greater, following his decision to end Title 42 expulsions. Now, without expedited removal in place, hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens will arrive every single month, with no policy in place to deter them or quickly remove them. We applaud Rep. Van Drew's leadership on this important issue and join him in demanding that Biden allow for the continued use of expedited removal." 

Click here to read the letter. 

BACKGROUND:

In this letter, the lawmakers expressed adamant opposition to DHS rescinding the expedited removal policy. The letter pointed to statistics that favor the policy remaining in place. 

• In fiscal year (FY) 2021, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CPB) had 1,734,686 total migrant encounters at our southern border. 
• In FY21, about 10,000 migrants with criminal convictions were arrested after attempting to illegally cross our southern border. 
• CPB seized over twice as much fentanyl in FY21 than it did in FY20; enough to kill the entire U.S. population over seven times. 
• Immigration courts faced a backlog of over 900,000 cases when expedited removal was implemented, which will only increase with DHS' decision to rescind the policy. 

Expedited removal was expanded under President Trump to speed up the deportation process for illegal aliens by removing court oversight in most cases. Instead of the process taking months or years, expedited removal allowed for illegal aliens to be deported in days.

This policy saves American taxpayer dollars, decreases the strain put on our judicial system, reduces crowding levels in detention facilities, and promotes strong border policies.