Deportation Up in 2013; Border Sites Were Focus

New York Times

By Julia Preston

October 1, 2014

Deportation Up in 2013; Border Sites Were Focus 

The Obama administration carried out 438,421 deportations in 2013, a record number, bringing the total for President Obama to well over 2 million during his time in office, according to official figures published Wednesday.

Deportations in the 2013 fiscal year increased by more than 20,000 over 2012 and by more than 51,000 over 2011, when there was a significant decline in the pace of enforcement, according to an annual report by the Office of Immigration Statistics of the Department of Homeland Security, the agency that collects the most complete data on immigration enforcement.

The figures show a continuing and pronounced shift away from removals of immigrants living in the interior of the country, toward a focus on swift expulsion of those caught crossing the border illegally, particularly along the border with Mexico.

About 44 percent of the deportations in 2013 were fast-track removals of migrants shortly after they were apprehended at the border, sending them back to their countries without going through immigration court, according to the report. Those expedited removals have been rising steadily in recent years.

The figures also show a broad trend away from deportations after proceedings in the nation’s immigration courts, which are currently bogged down with huge backlogs.

Nearly 40 percent of deportations were based on another fast track procedure that does not require a court hearing: reinstatements of old deportation orders that had not been carried out.

Only about 17 percent of deportations in 2013 went through the courts or came after a deeper review by immigration officers, according to the report. In 2011, the figure was 36 percent.

“You can’t look at this report and conclude that this administration has not been serious about immigration enforcement,” said Marc R. Rosenblum, director of the United States policy program at the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan research group in Washington. “This reinforces the message that he has been the deporter-in-chief,” he said.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the agency that carries out most deportations from the interior of the country, removed 198,394 foreigners who had been convicted of crimes, about 45 percent of total deportations, and a slightly lower number than criminals removed in 2012. As recent border crossers have become a greater share of the total, those with serious criminal records in the United States have gone down.

Mexicans were once again by far the largest group among deportees, making up 72 percent. But there were significant increases in migrants from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, the countries that were home to most migrants in a surge of illegal crossings in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas during the past year.

The figures will likely weigh on President Obama’s deliberations as he decides how to carry out his promise to take executive action to extend protections from deportation to larger groups of immigrants in the country illegally. The administration has said its priorities for enforcement are convicted criminals and recent border crossers. But while the numbers of deportations from the interior — about 133,000 — have decreased, they increasingly affect immigrants with families who are long settled in the United States.

Responding to worries of Democratic candidates in close Senate races, Mr. Obama has said he would postpone any unilateral action until after the elections in November. But White House officials have said the president will seek to shield more immigrants from deportation so enforcement agents can better focus on criminals and security threats.

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