A new Center for Immigration Studies report shows that according to the Office of Immigration Statistics (OIS) FY16 report the number of ICE deportations hit 10-year record lows. According to the OIS report ICE only removed 65,332 illegal aliens from the interior in FY16, a 6% decrease from FY15, making it the lowest number since 2006.
The total number of deportations increased from 235,413 in FY15 to 240,255 in FY16. However, all of that increase came from border cases or turnbacks, a figure that was not counted under deportations until the Obama administration.
Under the Obama administration deporting alien criminals has become a priority. While 98% of all interior deportations were convicted criminals in 2016, the total number of criminals deported fell 4% from FY15.
Other key findings of this report include:
- Deportations credited to ICE in 2016 increased by 2%. All of the increase came from cases of aliens arrested by the Border Patrol, not interior enforcement.
- Interior deportations fell from 69,478 in 2015 to 65,322 in 2016, out of a population of illegal aliens now estimated at 12 million.
- Deportations of criminal aliens fell from 63,127 in 2015 to 60,318 in 2016, out of an estimated population of two million criminal aliens.
- The total number of deportations under the Obama administration is not easily comparable to prior administrations because of the number of border cases included, but it is not record-breaking, as Obama has claimed.
- DHS maintains that CBP arrests have always been a large share of ICE deportations, but in fact this is a new development under the Obama administration. In prior administrations only a third of deportations credited to ICE were border cases; now about two-thirds are border cases.
Read the full CIS report here.
