New figures provided to Congress show that deportation rates have taken a steep dive, another 25%, so far this year. For the first six months of FY 2015, which began Oct. 1, 2014, only 117,181 illegal aliens were removed. Compared to the 157,365 illegal immigrants removed during the same period last year, the statistics suggest that President Obama's executive actions on immigration have significantly reduced total deportations.
“This is a stunning free fall in enforcement activity, not just deportations but arrests too,” said Jessica Vaughan, policy studies director at the Center for Immigration Studies. “It turns out that even criminal arrests and deportations have dropped, including those of the ‘worst of the worst’ Level 1 felons, and the huge numbers of criminal releases continues.”
The figures also show that overall deportations are down 41% in the last three years since President Obama began his DACA program in 2012.
According to the Washington Times, the drop in deportations may undercut the Obama administration's legal justification for their latest round of executive actions to grant amnesty to millions of illegal aliens. The administration contends that "deferring action" to deport millions of illegal aliens is justified by allocating limited resources to target "felons, not families." However, Homeland Security and ICE officials have said they are budgeted to deport about 400,000 people a year, but they are on pace to deport less than 250,000 in fiscal year 2015.
A spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Gillian Christensen, said that one of the reasons for the dropping deportation numbers is the more than 200 states, cities, and counties that have passed laws preventing local police from cooperating with federal officials.
“When laws and ordinances are passed limiting the use of detainers, ICE must expend additional staff and resources to develop and execute operations to locate and arrest convicted criminals at large,” she said.
For more on this story, read the Washington Times
