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In February 2021, a number of attention-grabbing posts started circulating on social media claiming that U.S. President Joe Biden had canceled a Trump-era program called Operation Talon that was tasked with deporting sex offenders. The website Human Events, for example, wrote: Some social media posts claimed that this Operation Talon program was responsible for thousands of arrests and that Biden canceled the program based on the baseless, conspiratorial claim that the top echelons of the Democratic Party are somehow involved in child trafficking. So what exactly is Operation Talon and did Biden really cancel it? Here's what we've been able to find out. The claim that Biden canceled Operation Talon started in the days following a report published by The Washington Post on Feb. 7, 2021, that examined some of the changes that may take place at ICE during the Biden administration. At one point, the Post reported that it had examined emails from senior ICE officials and had learned that Operation Talon was in limbo as the agency waited for guidance from the new administration. A senior ICE official told the Post that the Biden administration had nothing to do with (the) decision [to cancel Operation Talon]. This official also noted that Operation Talon was likely set ... aside as it awaited instructions from the Biden team. This estimation matches up with a news release published by ICE on Feb. 18, 2021, which stated that ICE had made an international organizational decision to place some temporary restrictions on their activities as they awaited guidance from the Biden administration. Tim Perry, the Chief of Staff at ICE, said on a press call about the new guidelines: It should also be noted that Operation Talon was not ICE’s sole vehicle to investigate and prosecute sex crimes. The ICE website, for instance, still lists programs such as Operation SOAR (Sex Offender Alien Removal). Homeland Security Investigations, a division of ICE, is also still capable of investigating and prosecuting sex crimes. Despite this, 18 state attorneys general penned a letter to the White House asking for this program to be reinstated. This letter cites a single source to support the claim that this program was canceled (the aforementioned article published in the Washington Post that quotes an official stating that program was likely set aside). Furthermore, this letter acknowledged that this decision was made by ICE and not the White House. The letter reads: The undersigned Attorneys General of 18 States write to express our grave concern about the recent report that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has cancelled Operation Talon, a nationwide operation targeting illegally present convicted sex offenders for removal from the United States. We still have some unanswered questions about Operation Talon. For instance, we were unable to find any news releases from the White House or ICE from the Trump era that touted this new program. While the Post reports that this program was planned in the final weeks of the Trump administration, it's unclear if this program was ever actually implemented. It's also unclear if this program was canceled or if it is just temporarily on hold for review. What is clear is that this was an internal operational decision made by ICE, not the Biden administration, and that the suspension of this program does not stop ICE from investigating sex crimes. Our investigation into this topic is ongoing.
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