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More fallout from Day #1 of the Biden Administration. We need some quick answers on this.
 

One of the things Mr. Biden did last week was place a 100-day moratorium on most deportations. Over 14,000 illegal immigrants had been in the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”).
 
Of those, more than 70% have either been charged with, or convicted of, other crimes. (By “other” I mean in addition to the crime of entering into the U.S. illegally.)

 
So when the President prohibits ICE from removing people who have ACTIVE DEPORTATION ORDERS issued by the appropriate courts, obviously that’s going to cause some foreseeable problems. Not the least of which is where to house new detainees when you can no longer remove existing detainees with active deportation orders.

 
Well over the weekend, several news outlets obtained a copy of an internal ICE memo issued on Thursday that directed its agents to not only “stop all removals” but also to “release them all, immediately.”

 
To be clear, I have not seen this memo yet. It’s authenticity still must be verified, but if these news reports are true, it begs two important questions:

 
(1) Who ordered this memo reportedly saying, “release them all, immediately” and why? We’re talking about 10,000+ people with criminal charges or convictions. As ill-advised as Biden’s directive was, it didn’t say anything about releasing those individuals onto U.S. streets.

 
(2) Those who are national security threats or aggravated felons with deportation orders could still be removed. So why did the memo reportedly say to “stop ALL removals”?

 
Although we didn’t hear much from ICE officials over the weekend, I expect answers to be forthcoming soon. This is a problem on multiple levels, and it probably wouldn’t have happened if the President wasn’t in a rush to liberalize our immigration policies on Day One of his administration.