ICE’s Alien Monitoring Program Lurches Farther Off Track

There’s more bad news about the expensive and problem-plagued Alternatives to Detention (ATD) program that’s supposed to track the whereabouts of illegal aliens on “non-detained court dockets.”

A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement document obtained by the Daily Caller disclosed that 49,459 aliens who were supposed to be monitored were not. That figure is 18,000 percent higher than the 266 ICE had been reporting on its website. If the new numbers are correct, ICE has been flat-out lying to the public.

The 18-year-old ATD program, which uses ankle bracelets and cell phones to keep tabs on illegal aliens in the U.S., ostensibly serves as a “flight-mitigation tool.” But an internal ICE audit found that it provides “little value” while racking up “significant expense,” with a vast majority of aliens ditching their immigration court hearings.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office piled on with more criticism, concluding that ICE, which administers ATD through a public-private $2.2 billion contract, “doesn’t fully assess how the program is working or ensure that the contractor meets standards.”

Additionally, FAIR reported on chronic glitches with ICE’s latest phone tracking app, raising yet more doubts about the Biden administration’s interior enforcement efforts … or lack thereof.

Despite expansion of ATD – supposedly monitoring 343,000 individuals at a “daily tech cost” of $416,749 — mounting evidence suggests that “gotaways” (migrants who evade apprehension by the Border Patrol) aren’t just a border phenomenon. ATD scofflaws pose a real and growing challenge from coast to coast.

ATD’s shaky performance, now highlighted by a disconnect with ICE’s own data sets, suggests that the agency gambit is more about public relations and lucrative technology contracts than actual results. SOP for Biden & Co.