An annual report by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) reveals that the agency deported fewer illegal aliens in 2021 than in the preceding five years, with a staggering 70 percent drop from the number of deportations in 2020.
According to the Washington Free Beacon, ICE’s report showed that just under 55,600 illegals were deported in 2021. In 2020, by contrast, over 185,000 illegals were deported, while over 267,000 were deported in 2019.
The report comes after Joe Biden’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) admitted in a letter to Congressman Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) that it had been “unable to statistically track the number of noncitizens released by Customs and Border Protection (CBP)…who have been removed from the United States.” After broad backlash against the Biden Administration for refusing to release deportation numbers for Fiscal Year 2021, the administration finally caved and released the report.
The shocking decline in deportations is indicative of Biden’s open-borders approach to the southern border, which includes greater leniency for illegals. Unlike President Donald Trump, Biden campaigned on allowing more illegals into the country and even encouraged mass immigration by promising to give free, taxpayer-funded benefits to illegals upon arrival, such as free healthcare, education, and housing.
To this end, Biden has reinstituted failed immigration policies such as “Catch and Release,” while halting construction of President Trump’s border wall, among other reversals from the Trump era that have been widely criticized.