Arrests and deportations of illegal immigrants have bottomed out under the administration of President Joe Biden, each dropping in fiscal year 2021 more than 75% compared to the record-high numbers seen during the Obama administration, according to newly released government data.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Department of Homeland Security‘s agency that enforces U.S. immigration laws within the country, removed 59,011 noncitizens from October 2020 through September 2021, most of which was under the Biden administration’s more rigid criteria for who could be taken into custody. In 2011, nearly 400,000 noncitizens were deported — meaning the numbers were down 85% under Biden.
Arrests of illegal immigrants also dropped significantly, though ICE officials who spoke with reporters in a call Friday morning declined to comment if either number were the lowest levels on record.
“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 issued Friday.
Just 74,082 noncitzens were arrested last year, down from surpassing 300,000 during the early years under President Barack Obama, according to an analysis by the Migration Policy Institute.
“That’s not terribly surprising. That’s what the Biden administration came in saying they were going to do,” said Theresa Cardinal Brown, the managing director of immigration and cross-border policy of the Washington-based Bipartisan Policy Center.
Although former President Donald Trump had vowed in his 2016 campaign announcement to crack down on illegal immigration, the number of arrests and removals by ICE remained significantly lower under the Republican compared to his predecessor.
ICE officials defended the further decline in arrests and deportations, suggesting instead that they went after noncitizens who were a greater threat to the public. Officials who spoke with reporters Friday said other factors, including changes that the Biden administration made to whom law enforcement could go after, the coronavirus pandemic, and how 1 in 6 ICE officers was pulled from normal duties to assist U.S. border officials with the 2 million people intercepted while illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border in 2021, also affected its ability to arrest and deport a greater number of people.
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, officials said. Of the 59,011 noncitizens removed from the country, 34 were known or suspected terrorists.
The increase in aggravated felon arrests was evidence of the agency’s decision to prioritize “quality arrests,” one official said.
The monthslong closures of the Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) courts at the onset of the coronavirus pandemic delayed legal proceedings for illegal immigrants in ICE custody and those on parole from having their cases heard. That also meant decisions in deportations cases were delayed, leading fewer people to be removed from the country.
“If there’s a lower number of deportations, that’s not necessarily ICE’s problem. It’s EOIR’s problem,” Brown said.
But given the high number of people being encountered at the southern border over the past year, ICE maintained that its low arrest and removal numbers should not be higher because migrants who are released into the United States on parole would not be arrestable until they have skipped out on court, likely not for years down the road due to the 1.5 million case backlog before EOIR.
“You shouldn’t equate a high number at the border to, you know, removal in a short period of time, and it can be a lengthy process,” an ICE official told reporters. “Some cases can take years really to come to resolution.”
Because more than 11 million people residing in the U.S. are illegally present, ICE has had to prioritize for years whom it will attempt to arrest, typically focusing on people with criminal backgrounds, but sometimes officers encounter illegal immigrants without convictions or charges filed and arrest them.
Under Trump, ICE officers were told to focus efforts on any illegal immigrant, including those arrested after driving under the influence or charged with other less violent crimes. Since February, ICE officers have had to go through an internal approval process by management before going into communities and arresting specific immigrants if they do not meet the three criteria.
The Biden administration moved in 2021 to limit whom ICE could arrest and thus remove from the country. ICE officers 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.
