U.S. interior’s immigration arrests drop

Detentions decreased by half from Trump presidency, agency’s data shows

WASHINGTON — Immigration arrests in the interior of the United States fell in fiscal 2021 to the lowest level in more than a decade — roughly half the annual totals recorded during the Trump administration, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement data obtained by The Washington Post.

ICE arrests in the interior plunged after President Joe Biden took office and set new limits on immigration enforcement, including a 100-day “pause” on most deportations. A federal judge quickly blocked that order, and ICE’s arrests increased somewhat in recent months.

But enforcement levels under Biden’s new priority system remain relatively low. Officers working for ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations made about 72,000 administrative arrests during the fiscal year that ended in September, according to agency data, down from 104,000 during fiscal 2020 and an average of 148,000 annually from 2017 through 2019.

Administrative arrest data is considered one of the best gauges of ICE activity because interior enforcement is entirely under the agency’s control, unlike deportations and other metrics that rise and fall with migration trends at the Mexico border.

Curbing civil immigration arrests within the United States allows the Biden administration to shield millions of longtime immigrants from deportation to Mexico and other countries, even as congressional Democrats struggle to deliver on the president’s goal of granting those immigrants a path to citizenship this year.

But Biden is still facing criticism from many corners: Texas and Louisiana are battling in federal court to compel the government to arrest more immigrants, while left-leaning advocates are angry with the administration for continuing to expel newer migrants attempting to cross the Southwest border.

During the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, Enforcement and Removal Operations’ 6,000 officers averaged about 12 immigration arrests per year, or one per month. The peak of ICE enforcement activity during the past decade was fiscal 2011, when ICE made 322,093 administrative arrests, about 4.5 times the 2021 total, data show.

Asked for comment on the data, ICE spokeswoman Paige Hughes said the agency “is in the process of finalizing our year-end fiscal numbers, and these numbers will be shared publicly when the review is complete. Data integrity is of the utmost importance to the agency and ICE’s vetted statistics powerfully demonstrate the effectiveness of our current approach of prioritizing national security, border security, and public safety.”

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas issued broad new directives to ICE in late September, telling officers the fact that someone is present in the United States illegally “should not alone be the basis” of a decision to detain and deport them.

But the agency months ago shifted away from the priorities of the previous administration, with ICE officials saying officers are focused on arresting people who pose a threat to public safety.

Under President Donald Trump, ICE officers had broad latitude to enforce immigration laws and make arrests, and many of those who were categorized as criminal suspects were nonviolent offenders or had convictions for immigration violations such as illegally reentering the country.

During fiscal 2020, about 90% of those taken into custody by ICE officers had some type of criminal conviction or pending criminal charges, according to agency data. That share fell to 65% during fiscal 2021; the other third were “immigration violators,” the data show.

ICE officials say the number of serious criminals being arrested has increased, however. Between Feb. 18 and Aug. 31, officials said, ICE arrested 6,046 individuals with aggravated felony convictions, compared with 3,575 in the same period in 2020.

The agency also pointed to the arrest of 363 sex offenders during a targeted operation this summer, compared with 194 during that period the previous year. Nearly 80% of these offenses involved child victims, ICE said.

Mayorkas’ new ICE guidelines instruct officers to continue to prioritize immigrants who pose a threat to national security and public safety, as well as recent border-crossers who entered the United States illegally.

“Are we going to spend the time apprehending and removing the farmworker who is breaking his or her back to pick fruit that we all put on our tables?” Mayorkas told the Post in a September interview. “Because if we pursue that individual, we will not be spending those same resources on somebody who does, in fact, threaten our safety. And that is what this is about.”