CBP
A U.S. Customs and Border Protection patch Alex Edelman/Getty Images

The Trump administration has instructed Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials to offer migrant teens the possibility of being repatriated to their home countries rather than being sent to a government-run shelter.

CBS News reported that the move changes longstanding U.S. immigration policy, which required to send unaccompanied migrant children to the Department of Health and Human Services if they came from countries other than Mexico and Canada. The agency oversees a network of facilities where minors stay until they turn 18 or can be placed with a sponsor, historically a U.S.-based relative.

The directive applies to children who are 14 or older. If the teens take the option, immigration officials will comply. If they want to stay they will be sent to the shelters. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said the policy change is a result of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which provides tens of billions to immigration agencies to ramp up deportation policies.

"The only change pursuant to the Big Beautiful Bill is expanding this option to return home to UACs from additional countries beyond Mexico and Canada," the department told the outlet.

The outlet also informed that ICE has conducted some 150,000 deportations in the first six months of the administration. The figure is still far from its self-imposed goal of recording 1 million deportations in the first year of the administration, but the agency has vowed to ramp up efforts following the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons said last week that the agency plans to use some of that money to hire 10,000 agents to locate and arrest migrants suspected of being in the country unlawfully.

CBS News noted that ICE is not the only agency conducting deportations, and that Customs and Border Protection recorded more than 112,000 in the first six months of the administration. There have also been 13,000 self-deportations recorded.

The current pace of deportations amounts to some 800 removals per day. Thomas Homan, President Trump's "border czar," has recently called for ICE to arrest 7,000 undocumented immigrants per day, more than double the current target recently set by White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller (3,000) and far above present enforcement levels.

In this context, ICE has directed agents to put ankle monitors to as many migrants enrolled in its Alternatives to Detention program as possible, potentially shackling up tens of thousands of people, according to a new report.

The Washington Post noted that an agency memo from June urged agents to put ankle monitors on migrants "whenever possible." It added that there are about 183,000 adults enrolled in the program who at some point consented to some form of tracking or mandatory check-ins while waiting for their cases to be solved. Now there are some 24,000 people who are wearing ankle monitors.

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