U.S. Deportations Down In 2017

This is interesting:

“WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. government deported fewer illegal immigrants in 2017 than it did last year, even as it arrested far more people suspected of being in the United States illegally, according to Department of Homeland Security statistics released on Tuesday.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) removed approximately 226,000 people from the country in the 2017 fiscal year, which ended on Sept. 30, down 6 percent from the previous year. The 2017 deportations were lower than at any time during the Obama administration, according to previous DHS statistics.

But ICE officers arrested far more suspected illegal immigrants in the months after President Donald Trump took office than in the same period last year. Between Jan. 20 and Sept. 30, the agency arrested nearly 111,000 people, a 42 percent increase over the prior year. …

Another reason for fewer deportations was that although immigration arrests are up, a burgeoning backlog in U.S. immigration courts has slowed the removal of immigrants who claim they will be harmed if they are deported to their home countries.”

Here are the key findings:

Border apprehensions are down 23.7%.
Immigration arrests are up 42%.
ICE deportations are down 6% and lower than any year of the Obama administration.

The big picture is that fewer people are crossing the Mexican border than at any point since 1971. There was a sharp decline in border crossings from 2005 to 2010 and illegal entries have stagnated since then. Even without the border wall, long term trends are at work here like the decline in Mexico’s birthrate and the improvement of the Mexican economy. The unemployment rate in Mexico is 3.3% which is one reason why there are significantly fewer Mexicans coming across the border.

Why has there been a drop in deportations though under the Trump administration? It is because deportations are being tied up in the immigration courts by liberal activists.