The Biden administration wants to carry out fewer deportations of immigrants in fiscal year 2025, despite the continuing crisis — which set an all-time record of 371,000 people encountered at the border in December.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has set a target of just 125,000 deportations in the next fiscal year, according to an agency budget request.
That number is lower than the 142,000 removals conducted in fiscal year 2023, which runs from Oct. 1 to Sept. 30, and less than half of the 267,258 individuals deported in fiscal year 2019, according to federal data.
The number of anticipated deportations in fiscal year 2025 would be equivalent to just 6% of the more than 2.4 million people the Border Patrol encountered attempting to cross the southern border in fiscal year 2023.
Jon Feere, former ICE chief of staff, told The Post that the agency’s latest request shows the Biden administration is trying to limit immigration enforcement.
“The Biden administration is openly undermining ICE’s law enforcement mission, endangering the lives of all Americans,” Feere said.
“Obviously, the administration’s goal is to continue encouraging illegal immigration,” said Feere, who now serves as director of investigations for the Center for Immigration Studies.
The number of encounters with migrants attempting to cross the southern border has surpassed 2 million in both fiscal years 2022 and 2023, which were unprecedented numbers.
More than 753,000 have attempted to cross at ports of entry or been caught sneaking over the border in the first four months of fiscal year 2024. But in that time, only 2,727 migrants have been deported on flights to Central America, according to Customs and Border Protection.
The number of deportations hasn’t increased proportionally with the record flows of migrants entering the country.
ICE carried out 185,884 deportations in fiscal year 2020, 59,011 in fiscal year 2021 and 72,177 in fiscal year 2022, according to agency data.
The Biden administration previously instructed immigration authorities to limit enforcement actions against illegal immigrants.
“The fact an individual is a removable noncitizen therefore should not alone be the basis of an enforcement action against them,” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas wrote to immigration authorities in a September 2021 memo.
