Biden Administration caught red-handed “cooking the books” on ICE arrest stats while actual criminals roamed free in our communities.
The Biden administration has been accused by Homeland Security Department officials of deliberately inflating immigration arrest numbers by counting illegal immigrants who were caught and released rather than those actually detained and deported. According to ICE officials, over two-thirds of the arrests recorded during Biden’s tenure were mere “enforcement theater,” with these individuals quickly released back into American communities. The revelation raises serious questions about the administration’s transparency on immigration enforcement and suggests a deliberate attempt to mislead the American public about the effectiveness of their border policies.
ICE Officials Expose the Fraudulent “Catch and Count” Scheme
In a stunning admission that should shock but somehow doesn’t surprise anyone who’s been paying attention, Todd Lyons, the acting director at ICE, has blown the whistle on the Biden administration’s creative accounting when it comes to immigration enforcement. “We found tens of thousands of cases that were recorded as arrests when, in fact, these instances were illegal aliens that were simply processed and released into American communities,” Lyons revealed, exposing what amounts to a shell game designed to inflate enforcement statistics while actually doing nothing to protect Americans.
The directive to count these so-called “pass-through” arrests reportedly came straight from the Biden administration’s Homeland Security Department. In what world does it make sense to count someone as “arrested” when they’re immediately set free? It’s like a police department counting shoplifters as “apprehended” after taking their name and telling them to continue shopping. This isn’t law enforcement; it’s a bureaucratic sleight of hand designed to create the illusion of border security while abandoning the actual practice of it.
The Real Numbers Tell a Damning Story
When you strip away the Biden administration’s statistical smoke and mirrors, the truth is stark and alarming. ICE’s interior arrests more than doubled from a pathetic 234 a day under Biden to 632 a day under Trump in just the first weeks of his administration. In less than two months, ICE recorded 32,809 interior arrests, nearly matching the total for all of 2024 when excluding the fraudulent “pass-through” arrests that Biden’s team had been counting to pad their numbers.
Even more disturbing is what these genuine arrests revealed: 1,155 known or suspected gang members and 39 known or suspected terrorists were apprehended under Trump’s renewed enforcement efforts, nearly three times the rate under the Biden administration. Let that sink in – the previous administration was allowing potential terrorists and gang members to slip through their fingers while bragging about arrest numbers that were nothing more than paperwork exercises. This wasn’t incompetence; it was deliberate deception.
NEWS ICE and DHS officials today said a review of their records showed that the Biden administration "cooked the books" and "falsely inflated" ICE arrest data, and were "purposely misleading the American public" by categorizing illegal aliens who were processed by ICE and…
— Elizabeth MacDonald (@LizMacDonaldFOX) March 12, 2025
The Human Cost of Statistical Manipulation
While Biden officials were busy inflating their enforcement statistics, real Americans were paying the price with their lives. Rep. Mark Green didn’t mince words when he called out the previous administration’s failures: “This victory at our borders makes the past four years even more of a tragedy.” He specifically cited the deaths of Laken Riley and Kayla Hamilton – innocent Americans who might still be alive today if not for the catch-and-release policies that prioritized political optics over public safety.
The Biden administration didn’t just fail at border security – they actively subverted it while trying to convince the American people otherwise. Their “pass-through” arrests weren’t just administrative procedures; they were golden tickets that illegal immigrants could use to show they were in a “legal process,” qualifying them for taxpayer-funded services and potentially aiding their long-term residency goals. We weren’t just not enforcing our laws; we were actively helping people circumvent them while counting it as enforcement.
A New Era of Genuine Enforcement
The contrast couldn’t be more clear. ICE is now holding 47,600 migrants in detention – they’re “maxed out” according to officials – actually enforcing our immigration laws rather than pretending to do so. While deportations have decreased by 17% compared to the same period in 2024, that’s attributed to fewer new illegal immigrants at the border, not a lack of enforcement will. The border crisis that spiraled out of control under Biden is finally being addressed with something more substantial than creative accounting.
Let’s call this what it is: a deliberate attempt to mislead the American people about one of the most critical aspects of national security. The Biden administration didn’t just fail to secure our borders; they tried to hide that failure behind fraudulent statistics while communities across America suffered the consequences. If they were willing to lie about something this fundamental, what else were they hiding? The American people deserve better than statistical shell games when their safety is at stake.
