Global Courant
The number of arrests issued by immigration and customs enforcement for captured illegal immigrants fell sharply in the early months of the Biden administration, new data shows, as part of a broader decline in domestic immigration enforcement under the administration .
Detainers are requests from ICE to notify the agency when an illegal immigrant is released into the custody of another law enforcement agency so that officers can turn them over to the ICE deportation process.
The use of ICE detainees has been the central issue in the “sanctuary city” debate, where so-called sanctuary jurisdictions will prevent local law enforcement from cooperating with most ICE detainees.
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ICE agents conduct an enforcement operation in the U.S. interior on June 2, 2022. (Immigration and Customs Enforcement)
“Detentions are an effective tool for keeping criminals out of local communities by enabling ICE agents to apprehend criminal non-citizens within the confines of a prison,” the ICE website said.
“The failure of law enforcement agencies to honor immigrant inmates and release serious criminal offenders onto the streets will undermine ICE’s ability to protect public safety and carry out its mission.”
But data obtained the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) at Syracuse University shows that under the Biden administration, the agency used arrestees much less frequently in 2021 than the Trump administration.
The data shows that the number of evicted detainees fell from about 10,000 a month at the end of the Trump administration — after a peak of about 15,000 a month in 2018 — to less than 3,000 in the early months of the Biden administration. The number of arrestees fell to just 2,200 in March 2021 and then rose to just under 4,000 in September 2021.
Protesters gather outside City Hall on July 12, 2020 in Seattle. (Karen Ducey/Getty Images)
TRAC notes that the number of detainees issued, which does not necessarily coincide with the number of immigrants detained by the agency, is an indicator of the intensity of domestic enforcement.
The highest use of detainees was under the Obama administration. In fiscal year 2010, about 300,000 arrestees were issued under Obama. That dropped to less than 100,000 in fiscal year 2015, before rising to a high of 175,000 a year under the Trump administration.
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Data obtained by TRAC shows that fewer than 75,000 detentions were issued in fiscal year 2021.
The sharp drop in arrests coincided with a radical narrowing of ICE priorities by the administration. The Department of Homeland Security first attempted a moratorium on all ICE deportations, but was blocked by a federal judge in response to a lawsuit from Texas.
It then implemented significant restrictions on priorities telling officers to narrow their attention to three categories of illegal immigrants: recent border crossings, threats to national security, and threats to public safety. It also made other moves, including limiting where ICE could make arrests.
The new strategy, which departs significantly from the Trump administration’s maximalist approach, coincided with a sharp drop in deportations.
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ICE’s figures show that the agency deported just 59,011 illegal immigrants in fiscal year 2021, a dramatic drop from 185,884 in fiscal year 2020 — the Trump administration’s last full fiscal year — and 267,258 in fiscal year 2019.
In fiscal year 2022, the number increased slightly to 72,177. The majority of deportations were illegal immigrants for whom Customs and Border Protection (CBP) was the arresting agency. Of the deportations for which ICE was the arresting agency, the number fell to just 28,204, from 31,557 in fiscal 2021 and 62,739 in fiscal 2020.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas praised the strategy, saying in 2022 that the agency had “fundamentally changed domestic immigration enforcement.”
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“For the first time ever, our policy explicitly states that the unlawful presence of a non-citizen in the United States will not, in itself, constitute a basis for initiating an enforcement action,” he said. “This is a dramatic shift away from the arbitrary enforcement of the previous administration.”
The ICE priorities were blocked last year in response to a lawsuit from Republican states, but last month the Biden administration won a Supreme Court victory when judges ruled GOP-led states had no jurisdiction to challenge the policy .
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In a statement, Mayorkas applauded the ruling and said the department “looks forward to reinstating these guidelines, which had been effectively applied by (ICE) officers to focus limited resources and enforcement action on those who pose a threat to our national security, public security and border surveillance.
“The guidelines enable DHS to most effectively carry out its law enforcement mission with the authorities and resources provided by Congress.”
Adam Shaw is a political reporter for Fox News Digital, primarily covering immigration and border security.
He can be reached at [email protected] or at Twitter.
