(TheConservativeTimes.org) – The Immigration and Customs Enforcement ended a COVID-ea program that was granting hundreds of free minutes of phone and video calls for illegal immigrants. This program has now been canceled and it’s expected to save taxpayers more than ten million dollars per year.
They began offering immigrants in custody over five hundred free minutes for domestic and international phone or video calls per month due to the COVID restrictions. Last year, the pandemic’s public health emergency ended, but the program remained intact.
ICE said that although the program continued to run, that they still implemented cost saving measures during that time.
An official from ICE stated, “Individuals in detention still have access to facility Wi-Fi to make telephone and video calls to contact their attorneys and families and may also make calls at their own expense using facility telephones and video tablets as available.”
The agency said that the current funding isn’t enough to stay operational, and it also costs Americans about fifty centers per minute on the call.
Biden, Harris, and the entire Democratic Party have been criticized for their lack of effort to control the immigration situation and inability to stay on top of border control. Some COVID-era programs are still in place, but things are expected to change.
The Republicans and Democrats seem to be on opposing sides when it comes to border control. Republicans have passed their own border package in the House which has additional funding, but it has failed to get Democratic support and the split on border control still stands.
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