ICE deportations plunge significantly to lowest level on record

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas says he wants to make ‘significant changes’ to Immigrations and Customs Enforcement – as ‘frustrated’ agents at the agency say the Biden Administration ‘doesn’t have their backs’. 

Mayorkas made the claim in an interview with The Washington Post on Tuesday, as ICE deportations drop to a record low. 

Less than 3,000 illegal immigrants were expelled from the United States last month by ICE, despite border crossings surging to a 20 year high. 

Mayorkas will release his first DHS budget request this week, and has already announced that two ICE deportation centers will close. 

However, the Democrat told The Washington Post that he has no plans to abolish ICE, instead saying he wants to ‘reorient’ the agency.   

‘I really want to elevate all of the other work [ICE] does and also ensure that its civil immigration work is well-focused in the service of the national security and public safety mission,’ he stated. 

 However, Mayorkas’ statement seem at odds with ICE employees who told The Post that Biden’s new policies have effectively stopped them from doing their jobs.

The paper says ‘Biden has placed ICE deportation officers on a leash so tight that some say their work is being functionally abolished’.  

Biden has implemented new rules in which ‘deportation officers must seek written authorization from senior-level supervisors to arrest anyone who is not a recent border crosser, a national security threat or an aggravated felon who poses a public safety hazard’. 

ICE agents are now making an arrest once every two months on average, and are spending more time ‘idling or doing paperwork’

According to The Washington Post, ICE deportations peaked at an average of more than 33,300 per month during Obama’s second term. He was dubbed the ‘deporter-in-chief’.   

In the first three years of the Trump administration, that average fell to 20,000 per month. 

However, the numbers have plummeted quickly and significantly during the first six months of the Biden Administration. 

Last month, ICE booted out just 2,962 immigrants – down from 20 percent from the  3,716 the month before. 

ICE reports that there are  1.2 million illegal immigrants in the United States who have been ordered to leave the country by a judge.  

It comes after it was revealed last week that more than 61,000 migrants who arrived illegally in the U.S. have been released into the country during Biden took office. 

A whopping 61,312  migrants have been let free with either a Notice to Appear before an immigration judge or an I-385 which fast tracks migrants out of custody and on to ICE.

It means many are being released without a court date.

The data, first reported by the Washington Examiner, has been seized on by critics as more evidence that the Biden administration is unable to take control of the border crisis. 

In April, 178,000 migrants were apprehended at the southern border – the highest monthly total in two decades.