Deportations Under Biden Drop by Over 70%, a Decades-long Low
Deportations by Immigration and Customs Enforcement dropped by over 70 percent during fiscal year 2021 — to a level not seen since the 1990s.
According to preliminary data published by ICE, there were 55,590 removals in FY 2021, during which Joe Biden took office and significantly changed the agency’s guidelines.
By way of comparison, ICE removed 185,884 people from the country in FY 2020, when Donald Trump was president.
In FY 2019, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, ICE carried out 267,258 removals.
NEW: According to preliminary ICE numbers, there were 55,590 removals in FY 2021.
That’s down significantly from the 185,884 deportations in FY 2020 and the 267,258 removed in FY 2019. https://t.co/tLwcQiwYZ0
— Adam Shaw (@AdamShawNY) February 9, 2022
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told CBS News last month that the Biden administration greatly narrowed the scope of those subject to deportation.
“We have fundamentally changed immigration enforcement in the interior,” Mayorkas said. “For the first time ever, our policy explicitly states that a non-citizen’s unlawful presence in the United States will not, by itself, be a basis for the initiation of an enforcement action.”
“This is a profound shift away from the prior administration’s indiscriminate enforcement,” the DHS secretary added.
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CBS News reported that on the first day Biden took office in January 2021, he ordered a 100-day moratorium on deportations, which a federal judge in Texas blocked less than a week later.
However, the following month, ICE announced new deportation guidelines, prioritizing recent border crossers, aggravated felons and those identified as national security threats.
“By focusing our limited resources on cases that present threats to national security, border security and public safety, our agency will more ably and effectively execute its law enforcement mission,” ICE Acting Director Tae Johnson said in a statement at the time.
The agency added in the accompanying news release, “Absent exigent circumstances, ICE’s field personnel will need to obtain prior approval from their chain of command before pursuing cases that do not meet the presumption criteria.”
FY 2021’s approximately 55,000 removals is the lowest level since 1995, when the federal government removed 50,924.
Since 1997 the number of removals each year has ranged between approximately 115,000 to 405,000.
Dan Stein, president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, accused the Biden administration of effectively abolishing ICE, Fox News reported.
“The new data confirms what we already knew: President Biden and Secretary Mayorkas aren’t judiciously enforcing our immigration laws; they are willfully and unilaterally nullifying those laws in defiance of their sworn oaths of office.
“In doing so, they are compromising the health, safety and security of the American people.”
Among those illegal immigrants in the nation, the Biden Administration has chosen not to deport is Geraldo Pando, a Mexican citizen charged with vandalizing Union Station in Washington, D.C., last month.
The Washington Examiner reported the 34-year-old, with a prior felony record, drew Nazi swastikas on the exterior walls of the train station, just blocks from the U.S. Capitol.
An illegal immigrant vandalized the Capitol Police HQ and was immediately released. A week later he spray painted swastikas on Union station. The Biden admin will not deport him.
Welcome to Biden’s America! https://t.co/lHrE0cdhgO
— Jim Banks (@RepJimBanks) February 3, 2022
Biden receives his lowest marks for his handling of immigration.
The RealClearPolitics average of polls found just 33.3 percent approve, while 56 percent disapprove.
