By Jennie Taer and Chris Nesi
Published Jan. 21, 2025, 7:48 p.m. ET36 Comments
President Trump lays out plan for dealing with illegal immigrants during inauguration address
Goodbye catch-and-release, hello catch-and-deport.
Migrants who are caught illegally crossing the US border will no longer be set free in the US while they await their immigration hearings. Instead, they’ll be taken into custody until they can be deported, Homeland Security sources told The Post.
Border Patrol agents were given the edict by the Trump administration on President Trump’s first full day in office Tuesday. It represents a seismic shift from the “catch-and-release” open border days of the Biden administration, during which around 8 million illegal immigrants flooded into the country.
Under the new orders, illegal migrants stopped at the border can only be released with the approval of from the Department of Homeland Security headquarters in Washington.
Under Biden, migrants often waltzed across the border with no fear of being turned back — emboldened by early signals by the administration that America’s borders were open.
After Border Patrol agents detained migrants at the border, they would attempt to ascertain their identities and make sure they didn’t already have deportation orders or criminal records in the US.
Failing that, migrants would usually be turned loose with a court date — with no mechanism in place to force compliance.
These policies resulted in numerous high-profile murders and other crimes across the US — including the killing of Georgia nursing student Laken Riley by a Venezuelan gang member and the murder of 12-year-old Jocelyn Nungaray — allegedly by two migrants who were released at the border just weeks before.
The free-for-all under the prior administration also let hundreds of migrants with ties to terrorist groups like ISIS to slip across the border — some of them later nabbed in cities like Los Angeles, New York and Philadelphia.
Border agents who previously spoke with The Post fumed about having to release migrants without proper vetting. Under the previous policies, they said they knew they were unwittingly releasing criminal and terrorists into the US.
As a result, agency morale tanked, with many personnel claiming they ultimately lost their purpose of securing the border.
But those policies are done, bosses told agents on Tuesday, according to multiple sources.
“Catch and release is ended. We will make every effort to hold [migrants] until they can be removed. The pursuit policy is being changed back to the previous version, and we will now use the term ‘illegal alien’ again since it’s what they actually are in legal terms,” a Border Patrol source told The Post.
The pursuit policy refers to an order under the Biden administration that hamstrung agents’ ability to chase suspected illegal immigrants who fled arrest.
The change comes after the CBP One — an app which allowed more than 1,400 people each day to schedule appointments with immigration officials at US ports of entry before entering the country — was shut down and all appointments canceled the moment that Trump took office on Monday.36
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Trump announced the changes in an executive order that rescinded dozens of executive orders issued by his predecessor.
“On day one, I will terminate every open border policy of crooked Joe Biden and the Biden administration,” Trump said.
