Although in theory the Biden administration has been checked in its plan to stop deporting criminal illegal immigrants, the numbers show that deportations by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement have plummeted.
One of President Joe Biden’s first acts, when he entered office, was to freeze deportations for the first 100 days of his administration, while Biden and his Cabinet developed new rules that would reverse former President Donald Trump’s policy of deporting criminal illegal immigrants.
The decision triggered a lawsuit in which Texas sued the federal government to block the order and won.
But the lawsuit did not block the implementation of ICE’s priorities, which have been narrowed to focus on illegal immigrants who are national security threats, recent border-crossers and criminals with aggravated felony convictions, according to The Washington Post.
Further, ICE agents must get permission from superiors to make arrests outside of those categories.
New figures obtained by The Post show that deportations have fallen dramatically.
In January — the last month in which Trump was in office — ICE deported 5,583 people. In February, that dropped to about 2,600 deportations.
ICE is not deporting people because it is not even arresting them, the numbers indicate.
During October, November and December, ICE averaged nearly 6,800 arrests per month. Even as the flood of illegal immigrants at the southern border drowns communities in chaos in a growing crisis, ICE only arrested about 2,500 people in February.
U.S. District Judge Drew Tipton, the federal judge who blocked Biden’s deportation order, noted during a Tuesday hearing that he has seen evidence of the way that the administration’s stated priorities for ICE officers have changed his caseload.
ICE formerly deported felons arrested in Texas when they were charged with crimes including human smuggling. Now they are simply released.
“Which was a surprise to everybody,” Tipton said.
“We had felons who had finished their time. The response that we got from [ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations] or ICE was to release them.”
Tipton related an anecdote of one human trafficker who wanted to be deported and was instead put out on the streets of a Texas town. The illegal immigrant, who had no money, eventually contacted a probation officer for help getting a bus ticket.
“He wanted to go home,” the judge said.
Instead, Tipton continued, the illegal immigrant has now vanished, and he has the potential of being arrested again for violating the terms of his release.
Tipton said Biden’s new policies that shape how ICE works are “none of my business,” but suggested they had “unintended consequences.”
“It’s causing a lot of confusion and a certain amount of chaos,” he said.
The Texas lawsuit will likely soon be moot, because it was triggered by the deportation freeze, which will expire on April 30.
However, new lawsuits have emerged from the attorneys general of Arizona and Montana who are taking on the new ICE priorities.
“Despite a clear mandate of federal statutory law, Defendants believe that there are literally no constraints whatsoever on their authority, and they may release individuals, including those charged with or convicted of crimes, even when immigration courts have already ordered their removal from the United States,” Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich and Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen wrote in their complaint.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.