Deportations Down Again; Pace is Lowest of Obama Presidency

Washington Times

By Stephen Dinan

April 9, 2014

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/apr/9/deportations-down-again-pace-lowest-obama-presiden/?utm_source=RSS_Feed&utm_medium=RSS

The Obama administration will deport its 2 millionth immigrant sometime Wednesday, according to projections by The Washington Times — a figure that has earned President Obama the derisive label of “deporter-in-chief” from immigration advocates.

But The Times’ calculations also show that just as he reaches that mark, Mr. Obama’s deportation surge appears to be over. Indeed, deportations are at their lowest pace since the president took office in 2009.

From Oct. 1 through March 8 — or more than five months into the fiscal year — U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement had removed 129,361 people. That works out to an average of about 814 deportations a day.

In 2013, ICE was removing 1,010 persons a day through the first five months of the fiscal year, while in 2012, it was removing 1,020. That means this year is down 20 percent from the pace in 2012, when the administration set its deportation record.

If the 2014 rate holds, the administration will remove only about 325,000 immigrants this year, or well below the 400,000 that Homeland Security officials have said they have the budget to handle.

ICE officials wouldn’t answer questions about why the drop has happened. Instead, the agency said it is enforcing the law in line with policy memos the Homeland Security Department has issued carving many illegal immigrants out of any danger of deportation.

“While we continue to work with Congress to enact commonsense immigration reform, ICE remains committed to sensible, effective immigration enforcement that focuses on its priorities, including convicted criminals and those apprehended at the border while attempting to unlawfully enter the United States,” said Nicole Navas, a spokeswoman for ICE.

The number of deportations has been a thorny topic for Mr. Obama, who is under fire from both sides of the immigration debate. Immigrant-rights activists argue he’s deporting too many people, including those without serious criminal records, while those who want to see a crackdown say he’s cooked the books to boost deportation numbers.

Both sides may be correct.

Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson acknowledged to Congress earlier this year that the administration’s deportation numbers include a large number of immigrants caught at the border by the U.S. Border Patrol. Previous administrations didn’t count those as deportations.

Subtracting those border deportations, ICE removed fewer than 150,000 immigrants from the U.S. last year. That’s the fewest since 1997, when the then-Immigration and Naturalization Service deported 111,794 immigrants.

Of those removed, an increasing number appear to have no criminal convictions on their record, but are instead recent arrivals to the U.S., picked up by the Border Patrol for having crossed the border illegally.

The Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, which tracks deportations, said that in 2013 only 12 percent of those deported were convicted of “Level 1” criminal offenses. The plurality, meanwhile, had no criminal convictions.

Still, the ratio of criminals to non-criminals is higher under Mr. Obama than it was under President George W. Bush.

Indeed, last month the former director of ICE told the Los Angeles Times that there was virtually no chance a “run-of-the-mill” illegal immigrant without a serious criminal record would be deported under the Obama administration.

Despite that, Mr. Obama has directed his new Homeland Security Secretary, Jeh Johnson, to look at ways to halt even more deportations.

Mr. Johnson is slated to meet with Hispanic congressional Democratson Wednesday to talk about other categories of illegal immigrants his department can carve out of danger of deportation. One option is to overlook all immigration violations, which would mean being in the country illegally would no longer be grounds for being kicked out.

But critics say that would be an invitation for a new wave of illegal immigration.

One ICE official suggested a reason for the drop in deportations could be because the Border Patrol is sending fewer illegal immigrants over this year.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which includes the Border Patrol, was unable to confirm or deny that claim.

The Washington Times reached its 2 million deportation calculation by prorating deportations in January 2009, when Mr. Obama took office, adding those to the hard figures for the rest of 2009, all of 2010 through 2013, and then extrapolating from the figures through March 8.

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