Deportations By Obama Administration Of Undocumented Immigrants Drop In 2013 For First Time

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) released its numbers on deportations this week, revealing that the agency deported 368,644 people from the United States in fiscal year 2013. The number represents a significant decrease from last year, when over 409,000 were removed by ICE, and it’s the smallest number of deportations carried out under the Obama administration. In a press release, the agency boasted that the new numbers reflected its commitment to priorities established in a June 2010 memo from then-ICE director John Morton -- immigrants with criminal records, fugitives from immigration proceedings, unauthorized border entrants, and those who try to illegally re-enter the country.

"Ninety eight percent of those removed in the last year met one of our key priorities,” said Acting Director John Sandweg. The agency said almost 60 percent of deportees had been convicted of a criminal offense, up from 55 percent in 2012. 235,093 of the deportees, it said, were apprehended “while, or shortly after, attempting to illegally enter the United States”, while 133,551 were detained in the nation’s interior. In an interview with the Associated Press, Sandweg attributed the drop in deportations to increasing numbers of Central Americans being arrested while attempting to cross the U.S.-Mexico border, saying it takes more time for their cases to be processed.

The new numbers are unlikely to placate critics of the administration’s deportation policy on either side of the political spectrum. Daniel Coates, lead organizer with immigrant-rights group Make the Road New York, suggested to the Latin Times that ICE may have manipulated its statistics to appear more in line with its priorities and pointed to the cost of deportations on children, saying that “the continued tearing apart of families poses a difficulty for continued trust and faith that the president really cares about and wants a comprehensive immigration reform with a path to citizenship.” The conservative Washington Times wrote on Thursday that the decline showed a “lack of capacity -- and of political will -- to remove most illegal immigrants” on the part of the Obama administration.