EXCLUSIVE:Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has ended a COVID-era program that gave hundreds of free minutes of video calls to illegal immigrants, Fox News Digital has learned, a move that is estimated to save taxpayers more than $10 million a year.
The federal agency began offering detained illegal immigrants 520 minutes of free domestic and international phone and video calls per month in May 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic that was emerging at the time and the visitation restrictions that were implemented as a result. The cost of the program is $10.2 million per year.
The pandemic public health emergency ended in May 2023, but the program continued even as in-person visits resumed with the end of social distancing requirements.
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June 2, 2022: ICE agents conduct a law enforcement operation inside the United States. ((Immigration and Customs Enforcement))
ICE says that while it continued the program until it began to wind down throughout June of this year, cost-saving measures have since become a priority as other resources are needed at the southern border.
“Detained persons still have access to the facility's Wi-Fi to make phone and video calls to communicate with their lawyers and family members and can also make calls on their own. [using] “Video-enabled phones and tablets will be made available at the facility based on availability,” an ICE official said.
The agency also said that if Congress gives it adequate resources, it could continue to allow free calls in the future.
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ICE has had this policy in place since May 2020, at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. (Fake Images)
“While ICE is grateful for the FY 2024 appropriations it received from Congress, current funding is insufficient to maintain operational readiness on multiple fronts while also providing free calls, which cost American taxpayers more than $0.50 per minute,” the agency said.
Funding has been a key topic of debate among lawmakers and officials on how to handle the current crisis at the southern border,
Democrats and the Biden administration have accused Republicans of failing to support measures to provide additional funding for resources to address the border crisis, including a bipartisan bill introduced this year that has so far failed to make it out of the Senate.
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Republicans have noted that they have passed their own comprehensive border package in the House of Representatives, which includes additional funding and strict limits on asylum and parole, but it has failed to win support from Democrats.
Meanwhile, some restrictions imposed during the COVID-19 era remain in place. The Biden administration recently urged a federal judge to end a ban on new detainees at a detention center in Adelanto, California.
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The installation in Adelanto, CaliforniaThe facility can hold nearly 2,000 inmates, but a September 2020 court order blocked it in response to a lawsuit by immigrant activists calling for fewer inmates due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Since then, it has only housed a handful of inmates.
