Knowing that Congress would never go along with his open borders policies, former President Joe Biden used the immigration court system to sidestep congressional opposition and implement a "quiet amnesty" that allowed upwards of 1 million illegal aliens to remain in the U.S. instead of being deported.

That policy has since been ended under President Donald Trump, and the Department of Homeland Security is now reopening hundreds of thousands of deportation cases that had been administratively closed, deferred, or dismissed, according to Breitbart.

Migrant advocacy groups and attorneys have cried foul, but the administration has countered that it is merely adhering to existing laws as they are written.

Biden's "quiet amnesty" exposed

In October 2024, the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement issued a damning 17-page report that exposed the Biden-Harris administration's policy of "quiet amnesty" by way of exploiting and manipulating the immigration court system and its massive backlog of cases.

"Instead of actually adjudicating illegal aliens’ cases based on the merits of aliens’ claims for relief -- such as whether an alien has a valid and successful asylum claim -- immigration judges under the Biden-Harris Administration have been tasked with rubberstamping case dismissals, case closures, and case terminations, all of which allow illegal aliens to remain in the United States without immigration consequences," the report stated. "This sort of quiet amnesty has become a staple of the Biden-Harris Administration’s immigration courts."

The report went on to outline how nearly 1 million illegal aliens were effectively granted unofficial amnesty by the prior administration, including more than 700,000 who "had their cases dismissed, terminated, or administratively closed, allowing those aliens to stay in the country indefinitely without facing immigration consequences."

And, in more than 200,000 other cases, DHS attorneys "failed to file the necessary documentation to begin immigration court removal proceedings," which, again, effectively allowed those illegal migrants to remain in the country indefinitely.

"This interim staff report highlights how the Biden-Harris Administration has used the nation’s immigration courts to advance an open-borders agenda," the subcommittee said. "Through administrative maneuvering at both the Justice Department and DHS, the Biden-Harris Administration has already ensured that nearly 1 million illegal aliens can remain in the United States without the possibility of deportation -- and that trend shows no sign of stopping."

Biden's "de facto amnesty program" rescinded

Fortunately, with the election of President Trump, that trend of "quiet amnesty" was ultimately stopped, and DHS is now working to rectify the situation by going back and reopening immigration cases that shouldn't have been closed or dismissed in the first place, according to the Los Angeles Times.

The article highlighted a few examples of illegal aliens who "are among thousands of immigrants who have built lives around the assumption they are safe from being detained and deported. Now they face that threat at the hands of the Department of Homeland Security, which is giving new life to administratively closed cases in a bid to step up immigration enforcement."

Notices to "recalendar" or restart old proceedings -- some more than a decade old, meaning the "quiet amnesty" was also occurring under the prior Obama administration -- have been sent out to immigration attorneys across the country, who are now scrambling to notify clients and file motions of opposition.

The Times reported that Sirce Owen, a former immigration judge who is now the acting director of the Executive Office for Immigration Review, which oversees the immigration court system, issued a memo in April that rescinded the prior administration's policy of using administrative closures and dismissals to grant migrants relief and reduce the case backlog, which she criticized as "a de facto amnesty program with benefits."

Trump and DHS are merely "following the law" in reopening old cases

Asked by the Times to respond to the complaints from illegal aliens and their attorneys about old cases being reopened, DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said, "Biden chose to release millions of illegal aliens, including criminals, into the country and used prosecutorial discretion to indefinitely delay their cases and allow them to illegally remain in the United States."

"Now, President Trump and Secretary Noem are following the law and resuming these illegal aliens' removal proceedings and ensuring their cases are heard by a judge," she added.