Immigration arrests in U.S.’ interior at lowest in a decade
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 the 2020 fiscal year and an average of 148,000 annually from 2017 through 2019.
ERO 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 undocumented 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 undocumented 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, ERO’s 6,000 enforcement officers each 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, historical data show.
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.
ICE officials said 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 re-entering the country.
During the 2020 fiscal year, about 90 percent 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 percent during the 2021 fiscal year (the remaining onethird 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 percent of these offenses involved child victims, ICE said.
GOP state attorneys general in
Texas and Louisiana are attempting to stop the new enforcement priorities from taking effect, arguing in a federal lawsuit that ICE is even failing to take custody of some criminals.
“There is simply no way for ICE to so significantly reduce its initial book-ins without allowing many dangerous criminal aliens at large in American communities,” the states said in a court filing late last week. The Biden administration’s “failure to detain criminal aliens is imposing significant costs on plaintiffs and their citizens.”
At the U.S.-Mexico border, illegal crossings have soared since Biden took office; the 1.7 million migrants apprehended by the Border Patrol during the 2021 fiscal year was an all-time high. Critics of the Biden administration say lax interior enforcement has incentivized illegal entries.
The current detainee population is about 22,000, according to the most recent statistics, well below the peak of more than 56,000 during the Trump administration.