Border Patrol forced to restart 'catch-and-release' of illegals at border

The Border Patrol will have to restart a policy of catch-and-release at the border, the top border officer said Wednesday, saying there’s not enough bed space to hold them and, under the law, they can’t be immediately sent back. Kevin K. McAleenan, commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, said things have gotten so bad that more than 100,000 illegal immigrants will be nabbed at the border in March alone. Those are levels that haven’t been seen in more than a decade, and the current situation is worse because the migrants are exploiting loopholes that make it almost impossible to oust them, Mr. McAleenan said. He said that means that the Border Patrol will, for the first time since the Bush administration, actually be directly releasing illegal immigrants into the communities — a policy agents call “catch-and-release,” and which they consider an embarrassing black mark on their duties...MORE