The rate of deportations from the US is now the highest in the last 10 years.

Deportations from the United States have reached their highest level since 2014. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deported 271 immigrants to nearly 484 countries last fiscal year, according to the annual ISE report. The Washington PostThis is the highest figure in the last decade.

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Most of those deported crossed the southern U.S. border illegally. Record numbers of people fled authoritarian regimes, poverty, and economic collapse in the Western Hemisphere in the wake of the pandemic. ICE’s report covers enforcement operations from Oct. 1, 2023, to Sept. 30, 2024.

Where to get resources for large-scale deportation

This is ICE’s final immigration enforcement report under the Biden administration before the president-elect takes office on January 20. Donald Trump promised to immediately launch the largest deportation campaign in American history after his inauguration. But details about how that would work are few and far between. For example, ICE staffing levels have remained stagnant for years.

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“Our agency is chronically underfunded, but our officers are adaptable and hold the bar high,” said ICE Commissioner Patrick J. Lechleitner. “Immigration and Customs Enforcement is not political. Our officers investigate crimes and enforce the laws enacted by Congress.”

ICE has about 6000 employees, roughly the same number it had a decade ago, the report says. During that time, the number of people awaiting immigration adjudication at ICE (people not detained but under ICE control) has nearly quadrupled to about 8 million.

Biden's Deportation Policy

Biden, pledging to halt deportations, took office in 2021 and sent Congress a bill that would have allowed most of the country’s 11 million undocumented immigrants to become U.S. citizens. But a surge in border crossings derailed his plans, and officials ended up increasing, rather than decreasing, apprehensions and deportations.

Illegal border crossings have dropped sharply since Biden implemented new rules that sharply limited asylum claims. As a result, far more migrants have been deported than were allowed into the U.S. and kept waiting in immigration court for their trials. On Dec. 19, U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported 46 encounters with migrants along the U.S.-Mexico border in November, the lowest number since Biden took office.

According to the data, ICE deportations during Trump's first term peaked at 267 people in fiscal year 260. Under Trump, deportees were more likely to be people arrested on U.S. soil than those who had recently crossed the border.

Federal immigration officials said several factors contributed to an overall increase in enforcement and removal operations over the past year, particularly in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, which have received the most flights carrying deportees from the United States.

Following “intensive diplomatic efforts,” ICE last year increased the number of charter flights to Eastern Hemisphere countries, including the first major removal flight to China since fiscal year 2018.

Last year, 2019 deportees were sent to China, slightly fewer than in fiscal XNUMX. Other flights followed to Albania, India, Senegal and Uzbekistan.

Records show Biden largely kept his promise to focus on immigrants who are a priority for deportation, including those who recently crossed the border and people who pose a threat to national security or public safety.

Under Trump, Any Illegal Alien Can Be Arrested and Deported

Immigration officials deport only a small fraction of illegal immigrants each year, in part because of long delays in U.S. immigration courts, budget constraints and public opposition to deportation in many states.

The 2024 report shows that the largest number of immigrants expelled from the United States went to Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.

These countries typically cooperate with the United States on deportation issues, and that cooperation is likely to continue under the Trump administration.

Venezuela, however, has been less cooperative. People from the South American country are among the largest groups on ICE’s deportation list, but only 3256 people were deported to Venezuela last year.

On December 19, Caroline Leavitt, a spokeswoman for the incoming administration's transition team, repeated the president-elect's promise to begin his second term with "the largest mass deportation of illegal criminal aliens in the history of the United States."

Trump also promised to increase deportations during his first term, but due to resistance from Democratic-led cities and states, he never surpassed the Obama administration's record of more than 400 deportations per year.

Former acting ICE Director Tom Homan, Trump’s pick to be the “border czar,” said the new administration will focus on deporting people who pose a threat to public safety and national security — groups that are the Biden administration’s top enforcement priorities.

Homan also said immigrants who already have pending deportation orders — nearly 1,5 million people — will also be prioritized when Trump takes office. But ICE’s internal data shows that nearly half of those people cannot be removed because their countries do not accept migrants or they have received judicial deferments for some other reason.

Trump's operations would be significantly different from Biden's, Homan said: Anyone in the United States illegally could be arrested and deported. Biden administration officials said in 2021 that simply being in the United States illegally would not be grounds for deportation.

A third of deported illegals had problems with the law

Of the 2024 immigrants deported by ICE last year, about 271% had criminal convictions or pending criminal charges, according to 484 data. Most of those deported were recent border crossers referred to ICE by the U.S. Border Patrol.

Traffic violations, drug offenses, immigration violations and assaults are the leading categories of criminal charges among those taken into ICE custody, the report says.

Last year, the agency deported 411 minors who arrived without parents, compared with more than 6300 removals in 2019. Officials deported more than 49 family members of migrants last year, up from nearly 000 the previous year.

Biden and his supporters argued that illegal immigrants were needed in the labor market, so he called on Congress to pass a bill that would give them a path to citizenship. The measure failed as illegal border crossings rose to an average of 2 million a year. CBS recently ran a feature on how mass deportations would weaken the U.S. economy.

Officials soon moved to tighten measures, but Trump continued to criticize Democrats for being too soft on illegals during his campaign.

Will families be separated?

To expand deportations, Trump would also need prisons and detention centers across the country. States like Texas, home to many undocumented immigrants, have been willing to cooperate with ICE, while California, Illinois and other states have passed laws limiting such cooperation in part because they say immigrants are longtime residents who take jobs that American citizens refuse.

Immigration has been the main driver of U.S. population growth in recent years, accounting for 84% of the increase from 2023 to 2024, according to Census Bureau data released Dec. 19. Most of the estimated 47 million immigrants in the United States are here legally, as naturalized citizens or permanent residents.

The specter of separating immigrant families also looms over immigration developments in the incoming Trump administration.

You may be interested in: top New York news, stories of our immigrants and helpful tips about life in the Big Apple - read it all on ForumDaily New York

Trump faced international condemnation when he forcibly separated migrant parents from their children at the southern U.S. border to prevent illegal crossings. Many fear his immigration policies at home will also separate families.

However, Trump and Homan insist that if the families do not want to be separated, they can leave the United States together.

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