ICE Data Show Major Drop in Arrests, Removals of Criminal Illegal Immigrants under Biden

Besides welcoming record amounts of illegal immigrants into the United States, the Biden administration further compromises national security by arresting and deporting “significantly fewer criminal aliens than the Trump administration,” according to government records obtained by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS). In a troubling report published this week the nonpartisan research organization analyzes Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) criminal data from the first three years of the Trump administration and the first three years of Biden’s presidency and the results are incredibly worrisome. The records were obtained through the federal law known as the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and public stats disclosed by ICE. The Washington D.C. thinktank points out that the statistics contradict Biden administration claims that its disastrous immigration policies are designed to focus on criminal aliens.

In fact, back in the fall of 2021 Department of Homeland (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas issued a memo saying that new guidelines for the enforcement of civil immigration law better focus resources on the apprehension and removal of noncitizens who are a threat to national security and public safety. Taking a jab at the Trump administration, the beleaguered DHS leader asserted that “for the first time, our guidelines will, in the pursuit of public safety, require an assessment of the individual and take into account the totality of the facts and circumstances.” In the document Mayorkas asserts that the majority of the more than 11 million undocumented or otherwise removable noncitizens in the United States have been contributing members of our communities across the country for years. As the administration strives to provide them with a path to status, the DHS Secretary writes in the directive, it will not work in conflict by spending resources seeking to remove those who do not pose a threat and, in fact, make our nation stronger.

The new CIS report shows that the Biden administration is flat out lying to the American public when it claims it prioritizes arresting and deporting criminal aliens who may pose a threat to national security or public safety. The group’s researchers examined data from fiscal years 2017, 2018 and 2019 then compared it to fiscal years 2021, 2022 and 2023 and found that “criminal aliens have been top beneficiaries of the Biden administration’s agenda.” The study clarifies that a criminal alien is a foreigner who most likely entered the U.S. illegally and has a criminal conviction or pending criminal charges. Under Biden there has been a 67% decrease in deportations of criminal aliens, a 57% reduction in arrests of criminal aliens, a 55% decline in immigration-related criminal convictions and a 44% decrease in detainer requests issued by federal authorities on criminal aliens in the custody of local law enforcement agencies nationwide.

The records show that in the first three years under Trump, ICE removed 485,930 illegal immigrants with criminal convictions or pending criminal charges. By contrast, the agency deported only 158,931 aliens with criminal convictions or pending criminal charges in the first three years of the Biden administration. In Trump’s first three years as president, ICE made 389,237 administrative arrests of undocumented aliens with criminal convictions or pending criminal charges. In Biden’s first three years ICE only arrested 165,650 illegal immigrants with criminal convictions or pending criminal charges. In the first three fiscal years under the Trump administration, ICE recorded 19,978 immigration-related criminal arrests, 18,340 indictments, and 17,784 convictions. In Biden’s first three years, ICE registered 7,523 immigration-related criminal arrests, 7,529 indictments, and 8,090 convictions.

Detainers for criminal aliens in local custody also dropped significantly with 484,990 ICE detainer requests in the first three years of Trump’s tenure and 270,127 in Biden’s first three years. Offenses committed by the illegal immigrants are broken down and include thousands arrested for driving under the influence, sexual assault, robbery, homicide, weapons crimes, possession of dangerous drugs, kidnapping, larceny, and a multitude of other serious crimes. The Biden administration’s policy of arresting fewer criminal aliens clearly resulted in fewer deportations of that demographic and “increased threat to public safety and national security,” CIS writes in its report. “The dramatic decrease in removals has also sent a strong message to people overseas that unlawful entry into the United States comes with a decreased risk of deportation, undoubtedly contributing to the unprecedented mass illegal immigration that is occurring under the Biden administration,” according to CIS.