Attorney General Ashley Moody said, “Since day one of his administration, President Biden has purposefully broken down the structure and law enforcement at our nation’s border with Mexico—all while confusing and misleading the nation about this devious, reckless scheme. If Title 42 ends, the administration may blame the mass surge of unvetted migrants on this rule’s remission, but don’t be fooled. They’re playing fast and loose with the lives of Americans to advance an absurd political agenda.

“As our litigation uncovered, this has been this administration’s plan all along. They’ve let in and lost track of hundreds of thousands of inadmissible immigrants, and it will get worse if Title 42 expires. We will continue our litigation efforts to force Biden to follow the law and try to mitigate this national disaster.”

The ICE training videos obtained by Attorney General Moody’s office show officials discussing the logistical problems created when federal authorities intentionally released tens of thousands of immigrants without charging documents—a formal legal document requiring immigrants to appear before an immigration judge. Without a charging document, it is much harder for ICE officials to locate and remove people in the country illegally.

Under previous administrations, immigrants were given charging documents at arrival. Now, under Operation Horizon, the federal government is attempting to locate migrants and send these documents by mail. The obtained training videos focus on sharing information about this operation.

Excerpts from the redacted training videos include an official explaining that since March 2021, U.S. Customs and Border Protection has released noncitizens at the border and directed the immigrants to report to the nearest ICE office in the intended area of residence. The official states that this process does not address the underlining challenges regarding the agency’s congressionally-mandated responsibility to locate, arrest and place into removal proceedings those noncitizens who are not in the possession of a valid, unexpired entry document. Operation Horizon is the federal government’s response to locate and place these migrants into removal proceedings.

Another official addresses the frustration members of ICE have, but Operation Horizon is a U.S. Department of Homeland Security directive that will be continued.

Yet another ICE official in the training videos further explains what happens under Operation Horizon, stating: “Operation Horizon, the background on this…you know over the summer, we had well over 150,000 folks come in. They were issued a piece of paper that said, ‘find somebody in ICE,’ and that was pretty much it. There was no processing. I know this isn’t something that you guys asked for, and I can assure you that no one in the criminal alien program asked for it either.”

To view portions of the training videos, click