Immigration apprehensions down, with a narrower removal focus of the Biden administration

Official White House Photo

Priscilla Alvarez and Geneva Sands for CNN reports on the fiscal year annual report of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.  “Immigration arrests in the United States have plunged under President Joe Biden compared to his predecessor, who cast a wide net of who was eligible to be taken into custody, according to” the report, which was released late last week.  ICE made more than 74,000 administrative arrests for immigration violations in fiscal year 2021, according to agency data, down from the Trump administration when annual administrative arrests hovered over 100,000. Senior ICE officials emphasized the impact of the pandemic on operations, pointing out the difficulty of comparing the data over the years.

Here is the Fiscal Year 2021 Annual report.  It states that

“In January and February 2021, ICE issued interim enforcement priorities, focusing its personnel and resources on aggravated felons and other serious criminals. . . . For the first time, enforcement priorities now require an assessment of the individual and the totality of the facts and circumstances to ensure resources are focused most effectively on those who pose a threat.

The public safety impact has been dramatic. ERO arrested an average of 1,034 aggravated felons per month from February through September 2021, a 53 percent increase over the monthly average during the final year of the Obama Administration and a 51 percent increase over the monthly average during the Trump Administration. During the same period in 2021, ERO removed an average of 937 aggravated felons per month, the highest level ever recorded and the greatest public safety impact since ICE began collecting detailed criminality data. 46 percent of ICE removals from February – September 2021 were of serious criminals overall (persons convicted of felonies or aggravated felonies), compared to 17 percent during the final year of the Obama Administration and 18 percent during the Trump Administration.

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In FY 2021, ICE also closed two detention centers: the C. Carlos Carreiro Detention Center in Dartmouth, Massachusetts, and the Irwin County Detention Center in Ocilla, Georgia. Motivated by operational and other considerations, the withdrawal of ICE detainees from these facilities flowed from Secretary Mayorkas’ direction that “we will not tolerate the mistreatment of individuals in civil immigration detention or substandard conditions of detention.” Additionally, ICE shifted its operations away from the detention of families while adapting new and existing detention capacity to address an influx along the Southwest Border. . . . . “

KJ