Documents published by Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti on Wednesday reveal U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) released almost 500 illegal immigrants from China, in just its New Orleans Area of Responsibility, between November 2022 and February 2023.
The documents were published on the same day Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill, a Republican, filed an “emergency lawsuit” against top immigration officials in the Biden-Harris administration, seeking to prevent additional releases from Louisiana ICE facilities after the federal agency allegedly transported an illegal immigrant from China who is suffering a “rare, aggressive, and drug resistant form of tuberculosis which carries high mortality rates,” through its facilities in the state.
Skrmetti’s office released the ICE documents after it successfully won a lawsuit against the Biden-Harris administration over its plans to collude with nonprofits to relocate thousands of illegal immigrants who were held in Louisiana to Tennessee, revealing more than 7,000 were ultimately released in late 2022 and early 2023.
Among the roughly 7,700 illegal immigrants who were released during this period, ICE recorded that 491 were citizens of the People’s Republic of China.