Preliminary FY 2021 Immigration Data Shows That Biden Effectively Abolished ICE, Says FAIR
(February 9, 2022, Washington, D.C.) — Just 55,590 deportable aliens were removed from the United States in FY 2021, according to long-delayed preliminary data quietly released by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). These historically low numbers are roughly a fifth of the annual removals carried out in Fiscal Years 2017-2019, and about one-third of the total for FY 2020.
Additionally, the new ICE removal data reviewed by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) indicates that about half of the FY 2021 removals occurred during the first four months of the fiscal year, under the administration of President Donald Trump. Thus, in the last eight months of the fiscal year, under President Biden, only about 27,000 illegal aliens were removed –barely 100 per day.
“At the apex of the illegal immigration surge that began with the inauguration of President Joe Biden, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) were encountering some 7,000 illegal entrants each day, not including the countless number who went undetected, while ICE was averaging just 100 removals,” observed Dan Stein, president of FAIR.
“For all intents and purposes, the Biden administration has implemented the radical left’s goal of abolishing ICE. It is also noteworthy that the administration’s paltry 100 removals per day in FY 2021 all occurred before Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas issued departmental edicts that bar ICE from arresting and removing all but the most violent foreign criminals and terrorists, and severely restrict where agents are permitted to apprehend them. In other words, removals in FY 2022 will likely plummet even further, all while the administration-induced surge of new illegal immigration continues unabated,” Stein continued.
“The new data confirms what we already knew: President Biden and Secretary Mayorkas aren’t judiciously enforcing our immigration laws; they are willfully and unilaterally nullifying those laws, in defiance of their sworn oaths of office. In doing so, they are compromising the health, safety and security of the American people,” Stein concluded.
The data can be accessed here: https://www.ice.gov/doclib/detention/FY21-detentionstats.xlsx
Contact: Matthew Tragesser, 202-328-7004 or mtragesser@fairus.org