The Department of Homeland Security said Tuesday that apprehensions of illegal immigrants at the border fell 31 percent in fiscal 2015, but said that decline is good news, as it’s a sign that fewer illegal immigrants are trying to cross the border into the U.S.
In its year-end report, DHS said 337,117 people were apprehended at the border, down from 486,651 in the prior year. Secretary Jeh Johnson said that shows fewer people are trying.
“[T]he removal numbers were driven by the dramatic decrease in those apprehended at the border in FY 2015 — 337,117 — the second lowest apprehension number since 1972, reflecting a lower level of attempted illegal migration at our borders,” he said.
But Republicans in Congress were already doubting DHS’s explanation, and said lower overall enforcement numbers were the real reason for the decline.
For example, DHS reported at the end of fiscal 2014 that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement deported almost 100,114 people from the interior of the country. One year later, DHS said deportations from the interior fell to 69,478, another 31 percent drop.
“Interior deportations never lie,” one GOP Senate aide told the Washington Examiner. “Are there fewer illegal inside U.S.? Of course not. So when those go down it tells you one thing: less law enforcement.”
But while interior deportations fell, DHS played up the fact that a bigger percentage of those deportations involved people with criminal records. DHS said just 82 percent of ICE’s interior removals were of convicted criminals, but that number grew to 91 percent in 2015.
DHS also said it was stopping more people at ports of entry in 2015 than it was in 2014. Customs and Border Protection officials stopped 225,342 “inadmissible individuals” at ports of entry, a 14 percent jump from the prior year.
