Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deported over 142,000 people in 2023 – less than 5% of all migrants encountered at US borders.
In its 2023 annual report released last week, ICE readily noted that its number of expulsions was double those of the previous year, but under Joe Biden’s presidency the agency is deporting far fewer people than it did under Donald Trump.
For example, in the immigration agency’s 2018 financial year, ICE removed 265,000 individuals from the US, representing over 30% of the 680,000 migrants encountered at the border that year.
During the fist year Biden was in office, statistics from Customs and Border Protection show border encounters almost tripled from 647,000 to 1.95 million.
That same year Biden issued new guidelines about how ICE should carry out immigration enforcement, which resulted in just 59,000 removals for the year, the lowest number of deportations in the last six years.
ICE’s latest figures show that its officials deported 142,580 immigrants to about 180 countries last fiscal year, including more than 44,000 from the interior and more than 98,000 from the border, the report said.
It also highlighted that ICE removed more noncitizens in 2023 than in 2022, which was driven by changes in migration patterns and the lifting of Title 42 and COVID-19 pandemic-era restrictions in May.
“Among those removed, 108 were foreign fugitives wanted by their governments for crimes including homicide, rape, kidnapping, drug trafficking, assault, and sex offenses,” the report stated.
According to ICE, 139 “known or suspected terrorists” and 3,406 “known or suspected gang members” were also among the deportees.
Additionally, more than 60,000 noncitizens were expelled prior to May 12 last year under the Title 42 public health order.
“ICE continues to disrupt transnational criminal organizations, remove threats to national security and public safety, uphold the integrity of U.S. immigration laws, and collaborate with colleagues across government and law enforcement in pursuit of our mission to keep U.S. communities safe,” ICE Deputy Director Patrick J. Lechleitner said in a statement.
During fiscal 2023, more than 2.47 million encounters with migrants were reported along the US-Mexico border, according to data from US Customs and Border Protection.
Nearly 2.5 million people were apprehended illegally crossing the Mexico-US border in fiscal year 2023 — a record-breaking tally — along with an estimated 670,000 “gotaways” who evaded authorities.
