US immigration authorities last year deported the largest number of undocumented immigrants in nearly a decade, surpassing the record of Donald Trump’s first term in office.
President Joe Biden in 2021 had pledged to pause deportations, but his administration ended up expanding it following a surge in border crossings.
In the newly released report, ICE said the steep climb in deportations last fiscal year was partly the result of a streamlined process.
More deportations flights went to further away destinations, including Africa and Asia, which did not accept US deportations for years, the agency said.
Roughly 82% of the 271,000 immigrants deported that year were arrested by border agents.
Last year, US immigration officials broke the record set during Donald Trump’s first term in office by deporting more undocumented immigrants than they had in almost ten years.
In a report issued Thursday, the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency said that over 271,000 immigrants were deported from the United States during the previous fiscal year.
Only a few weeks before President-elect Trump takes office, he plans to make mass deportations a key component of his incoming administration. This is the ICE report.
In 2021, President Joe Biden promised to halt deportations, but after a spike in border crossings, his administration ended up increasing them.
The recent report from ICE stated that a streamlined procedure contributed to the sharp increase in deportations during the previous fiscal year.
The agency said that more deportation flights were sent to farther-flung locations like Asia and Africa, which for years did not accept US deportations.
Compared to those ICE arrested in the US interior, the majority of deportations in fiscal year 2024 involved migrants who were detained by border officials.
Border agents arrested about 82 percent of the 271,000 immigrants deported in that year.
The “largest deportation operation in history” is what President-elect Trump has promised to start when he takes office on January 20.
However, there will probably be significant financial and logistical obstacles to these promises.
Trump criticized the White House’s border policies on the campaign trail for a large portion of the time before his resounding victory over Biden in November.
Speaking to Reuters, Karoline Leavitt, a spokeswoman for the Trump transition, said that Biden’s deportations paled in comparison to the massive influx of illegal immigrants during his presidency.
“By initiating the largest mass deportation operation of illegal criminals in the history of the United States, President Trump will immediately address the immigration and national security crisis that Joe Biden caused,” she stated.
US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) reports that the number of migrant encounters along the US-Mexico border has decreased significantly, especially in recent months, and is currently at its lowest level since July 2020. The number of encounters reached a record high in December 2023.
It also said that increased diplomatic efforts to persuade nations to repatriate more deportees were responsible for the increase in deportations.
Authorities in Mexico have also been cracking down harder on the migrant flow that is going north to the US border.
Mexico’s assistance and President Biden’s executive order that severely restricted asylum in June resulted in fewer illegal border crossings.
Since then, the US Border Patrol has reported a 70% decrease in the number of people it has released pending immigration court proceedings.
