“If you’re a criminal, you’ll be deported,” Barack Obama said in November 2014, adding, “If you plan to enter the U.S. illegally, your chances of getting caught and sent back just went up.” The occasion for the announcement was his granting legal status by executive fiat to millions of illegal immigrants.
It thus comes as no surprise to learn that fewer criminal illegal immigrants were deported in the past year than when Obama took office in 2009, despite his pledge to focus on finding and deporting them.
But deportations of criminal illegal immigrants have declined to a new low since Obama took office, according to Department of Homeland Security numbers obtained by the Associated Press.
His administration also deported the fewest number of illegal immigrants overall last year — 231,000 — since 2006. That’s a 42% drop just since 2012.
Obama’s chief immigration officer, Sarah Saldana, was called to testify before Congress in April because of the declining numbers of deportations in recent years. She attributed the plummet to the surge of children crossing the border and uncooperative local and foreign governments.
Those 231,000 deported in the past year include about 136,700 convicted criminals, but does not include Mexicans who were apprehended and quickly deported at the border.
The DHS figures obtained by the AP are not yet public, but include month-by-month breakdowns between Oct. 1, 2014 and Sept. 28.
This report, by Rachel Stoltzfoos, was cross-posted by arrangement with the Daily Caller News Foundation.
