(Headline USA) Arrests and deportations of illegal immigrants have dropped by up to 85% under President Joe Biden’s administration compared to previous administrations, according to data released by the Department of Homeland Security.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement reported this week that it removed 59,011 illegal immigrants between October 2020 and September 2021. For comparison, in 2011 during the Obama administration, around 400,000 illegal immigrants were deported.
Arrests of illegal immigrants have also decreased significantly, ICE revealed. Just 74,082 noncitizens were arrested last year. Former President Barack Obama arrested nearly 300,000 illegal immigrants during his first few years in office.
“As the annual report’s data reflects, ICE’s officers and special agents focused on cases that delivered the greatest law enforcement impact in communities across the country while upholding our values as a nation,” acting ICE Director Tae Johnson said in a statement on Friday.
ICE officials defended the drop in deportations and arrests, arguing they narrowed their arrests to illegal immigrants who posed the greatest threat to the public.
They said more than 12,000 of the 74,082 arrests were of aggravated felons or noncitizens who have been convicted of a serious felony — nearly double the previous year’s 6,800 figure. And of the 59,011 noncitizens removed from the country, 34 were known or suspected terrorists.
However, officials also acknowledged that it has been more difficult to arrest and deport illegals under this administration, noting that many officers have been pulled from their normal duties to relocate and transfer the 2 million illegals intercepted in 2021.
The Biden administration also changed the criteria for which illegal immigrants can be deported, telling ICE officials that they must obtain permission to arrest illegal immigrants who have not been convicted of an aggravated felony, affiliated with a gang or terrorist network, or illegally entered the U.S. after November 2020.
Theresa Cardinal Brown, managing director of immigration and cross-border policy for the Bipartisan Policy Center, said these numbers aren’t “surprising.”
“That’s what the Biden administration came in saying they were going to do,” she said.
