Washington, D.C. (March 16, 2022) – New analysis from the Center for Immigration Studies reveals that the new immigration enforcement report released last week provides a very selective and opaque picture of ICE activity. Under the Biden policies and acting ICE director Tae Johnson’s leadership, and during a historic surge in illegal arrivals at the southern border, ICE is arresting and removing even fewer deportable aliens — and even fewer criminals — than was the case in 2020, when ICE was operating under the pandemic lockdown restrictions.
The new ICE report is not the comprehensive statistical enforcement report that typically is released in December of each year with details on ICE arrests, detention, removals, and more, broken down by ICE field office. Instead, this report aims to mask the collapse of immigration enforcement under Biden policies, which have severely limited the types of cases ICE officers are allowed to work.
The Center’s analysis, authored by Jessica Vaughan, the Center’s director of policy studies, provides the most important metrics from the new ICE annual report alongside the same metrics from 2020. The comparison begins to reveal the extent to which enforcement has been stifled by Biden policies.
“The narrative-driven report released late by the Biden administration does not fulfill the requirement set by Congress that ICE provide an annual report detailing data from ICE’s broad responsibilities. But the comparison of the limited 2021 numbers provided in this report to the 2020 numbers is very troubling in regard to public safety. Congress should demand a complete 2021 ERO report, as has been provided in the past,” said Vaughan.
“This report is a transparent attempt to gloss over the near abolition of immigration enforcement and the disastrous public safety consequences for American communities,” Vaughan continued. “The administration seems to hope that if it talks about percentages, people won’t notice that the actual numbers of removals are in the tank. But people are noticing cases of criminals who should have been deported, and who would have been under normal circumstances, but who are still here committing more crimes,” Vaughan said. She noted the example of a visa overstayer in California, who recently murdered his three daughters and a custodian [Man who killed 3 daughters in church was in US illegally | abc10.com], and cases cited in federal lawsuits brought by states hoping to enjoin the Biden policies.
