Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
Last year, US immigration authorities deported the largest number of undocumented immigrants in nearly a decade, surpassing the record set by Donald Trump’s first term as president.
More than 271,000 immigrants were deported from the U.S. in the last fiscal year, according to a report released Thursday by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
The ICE report comes just weeks before President-elect Trump, who plans to make mass deportation a cornerstone of his incoming administration, takes office.
President Joe Biden promised to freeze deportations in 2021, but his administration ended up expanding them after a spike in border crossings.
In a recently published reportICE said the sharp increase in deportations last fiscal year was partly the result of a streamlined process.
More deportation flights went to more distant countries, including Africa and Asia, which have not received deportations from the US for years, the agency said.
Most deportations in fiscal year 2024 involved migrants apprehended by border agents, compared to those arrested by ICE in the U.S. interior.
About 82% of the 271,000 immigrants deported that year were arrested by border agents.
President-elect Trump has vowed to launch “the largest deportation operation in history” when he returns to office on January 20.
Those promises, however, are likely to collide huge logistical and financial challenges.
Ahead of his decisive victory over Biden in November, Trump spent a lot of time on the campaign trail attacking the White House’s border policies.
Trump’s transition spokeswoman Caroline Leavitt told Reuters that Biden’s deportations were minor compared to the high level of illegal immigration during his presidency.
“On day one, President Trump will fix the immigration and national security nightmare that Joe Biden created by launching the largest mass deportation of illegal criminals in the history of the United States,” she said.
The number of migrant encounters along the US-Mexico border reached a record high in December 2023, but has declined significantly, especially in the past few months, and is now at its lowest level since July 2020, according to US Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
He also attributed the rise in deportations to improved diplomatic efforts to persuade countries to accept more deportees.
Mexican authorities are also increasingly stemming the flow of migrants heading north to the US border.
In June, President Biden issued an executive order that sharply limited asylum, which, along with help from Mexico, led to a decrease in illegal border crossings.
Since then, the number of people released by the US Border Patrol pending an immigration hearing has dropped by 70%, the agency reported.
