Programs for illegal immigrants shut down by ICE due to high costs.

ICE has discontinued two programs that offer social services to undocumented immigrants who are released into the U.S. interior, stating that one is excessively expensive with minimal benefits and the other contradicts ICE's objectives.

ICE responded to Rep. Byron Donalds and 15 other Congress members who inquired about the "Alternatives to Detention" program in May, asserting that the program is an efficient and effective way to monitor a specific group of illegal immigrants on ICE's non-detained docket.

While ICE has only around 40,000 beds available at any given time, its non-detained docket has grown to nearly 7.7 million people, with over 181,000 enrolled in the Alternatives to Detention monitoring program.

The agency has recently ended some of its programs that were designed to provide assistance to individuals not in detention. One such program was the Wraparound Stabilization Service (WSS), which was launched in February 2020 and involved collaborating with NGOs to offer psychosocial and behavioral health support to vulnerable participants and their families who required additional stabilization services.

The program, according to ICE, stopped referrals in July and was ineffective in achieving its objectives, with only a 2% higher compliance rate among those who participated in services compared to those who did not.

"The WSS was found to be too expensive with minimal benefits to ICE, leading to its determination that the service was not cost-effective and should not be continued."

Previously, ICE mentioned challenges with the program, such as a complicated identification and referral procedure, a significant rise in participants, and limited resources.

The YACMP program, which provided legal services, screenings, referrals to social service programs, and human trafficking screenings to 18- and 19-year-old migrants, was present in 16 cities and had been running since 2023. However, the agency had decided not to renew the vendor contract for the program in June.

The letter from the agency states that in addition to financial constraints, a review of the program showed that YACMP does not align with ERO's mission or priorities. As a result, ERO took measures to realign or discontinue using programs to tackle the budget challenges facing the agency.

The Intensive Supervision Appearance Program (ISAP) is a tracking system that uses GPS ankle or wrist devices to monitor individuals with court tracking. ICE reported that 98.6% of those with court tracking appeared at their court hearings overall, and 90.4% appeared for final hearings. As of September, 13.2% of participants were being tracked by a GPS ankle or wrist device, and the average length on the program was 511.9 days.

The agency disclosed that in fiscal 2024, there were 3,913 charges and 688 convictions for individuals enrolled in the ATD program, including 10 sex offense convictions, 364 traffic offense convictions, two homicide convictions, four kidnapping convictions, and 65 assault convictions.

The Trump administration plans to increase deportations significantly, with President-elect Trump promising a "historic" mass deportation operation. Fox Digital has reported this month that it aims to reduce the number of people in detention while increasing the use of ankle monitors on those who cannot be detained.

Lawmakers were called upon by conservatives to abolish additional programs for illegal immigrants, in response to the information they provided.

Lora Ries, director of the Heritage Foundation's Border Security and Immigration Center, stated on Planet Chronicle Digital that ICE is a law enforcement agency, not a charity. She urged the redirection of the billions of dollars DHS has wasted on bringing millions of illegal aliens into the country and providing them with excessive amenities towards getting every illegal alien safely back to their home country.

President Trump will likely dismantle other initiatives similar to the ones Ries deemed a "boondoggle," as he has already done with the services in question.

Instead of spending taxpayer money on conflicts with an agency's mission, there should be a significant increase in resources for detaining and deporting illegal aliens. If you do not support the agency's mission, you should not receive any funding.