Report: More Than 256k Illegals Deported, Most Since 2014; ICE Still Wants Wall
A new federal report shows that over the past year, U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement actions resulted in the deportation of more illegal immigrants than any year since 2014.
ICE’s FY2018 report, which covers from Oct. 1, 2017 to Sept. 30, 2018, said that ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations division “conducted 158,581 overall administrative arrests, 15,111 more than in FY2017, while it conducted 256,085 removals – the highest level since FY2014, resulting in a more than 10 percent increase in overall arrests and removals.”
The agency said that “9 out of 10 ERO administrative arrests had either a criminal conviction(s), pending charge(s), were an ICE fugitive, or illegally reentered the country after previously being removed.”
“There is no question that these arrests positively impacted public safety and made communities safer,” ICE Deputy Director Ronald D. Vitiello said, according to CNN.
“We’ve continued to achieve gains in all meaningful enforcement measurements,” Vitiello said, according to The Washington Post.
Vitiello, speaking to reporters on Friday, said that he fears record numbers of illegal immigrants entering the country along the border with Mexico will overwhelm ICE facilities, forcing the release of those detained for being in the country illegally.
“With the continued surge and without congressional action to fund the agency at adequate levels, ICE may be forced to make difficult choices that could hamper our ability to fulfill our public safety or national security mission,” he said.
“We’re worried,” Vitiello said. “If we begin releasing aliens due to budgetary constraints, which has occurred in the past and created public safety risks, ICE may be forced to release criminal aliens back into our communities to possibly reoffend.”
As it is, according to a comment of Vitiello’s reported by The Epoch Times, about 560,000 detainees are “in the wind” from past surges that overwhelmed detention facilities.
The report outlined the steps taken to handle illegal immigrants who are released to appear later in court, and added, “very few aliens from the non-detained docket comply with these orders and instead join an ever-growing list of 565,892 fugitive aliens.”
ICE’s report said that in the past year, ICE had about 50,000 unaccompanied children and 107,000 family members apprehended at the border with Mexico. The year before, about 41,000 children and 75,000 people traveling as families were caught.
During his call with reporters, Vitiello said that building the border wall proposed by President Donald Trump “would give us less work to do.”
“It would reduce the workload across the board,” he said, according to The New York Times.
Trump is currently battling congressional Democrats for funding for the wall.
“Anytime you hear a Democrat saying that you can have good Border Security without a Wall, write them off as just another politician following the party line. Time for us to save billions of dollars a year and have, at the same time, far greater safety and control!” Trump tweeted Monday.
Anytime you hear a Democrat saying that you can have good Border Security without a Wall, write them off as just another politician following the party line. Time for us to save billions of dollars a year and have, at the same time, far greater safety and control!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 17, 2018
There are an esteemed 10 million to 12 million illegal immigrants in the United States.
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