The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) bureau released its enforcement and removal operations report for fiscal year 2014, which shows that illegal border crossings rose dramatically this year while deportations dropped. Many expect illegal immigration, especially from non-contiguous countries, to surge again in 2015, and the president’s executive amnesty is designed to drive deportation numbers even lower.
The ICE report says that border apprehensions rose from 420,789 in fiscal year 2013 to 485,651 in fiscal year 2014. This was in part due to the surge of illegal border crossers from Central America.
The Administration claimed it could not deport surge aliens minors due to the 2008 William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Act, which allows unaccompanied alien children from non-contiguous countries to receive an immigration hearing in lieu of immediate deportation. But a Center for Immigration Studies report said a significant majority of surge minors could have been deported because they are not “unaccompanied alien children” according to the federal definition.
In fiscal year 2014, ICE deported 315,943 illegal aliens who were either found in the interior (102,224) or captured at the border by the Customs and Border Patrol Agents (213,719). This is down from 368,644 in fiscal year 2013.
Although interior-deportation reductions are largely driven by the Administration’s non-deportation policies, The Washington Times reports one Administration official as saying the drop is also the result of sanctuary cities turning fewer illegal aliens over to federal authorities for deportation.
Read more in The Washington Times or Breitbart News.
