Highlights From ICE FY 2021 Annual Report

After an unacceptable delay, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has finally released their official year-end report for Fiscal Year (FY) 2021 – which ended more than five months ago. Traditionally, annual reports are released one to two months after the fiscal year ends.

Last month, FAIR uncovered preliminary FY 2021 figures hidden deep within the ICE website. The figures detailed in the official report released on March 11 closely mirror those preliminary figures but offer additional detail. Some of these figures include:

  • 59,011 illegal alien removals. Of those, 28,677 were removed on or after February 18, 2021, confirming FAIR’s previous estimate that roughly half of the FY 2021 deportations occurred during the last four months of President Trump’s term in office.
  • 74,082 total administrative arrests were made by ICE officers. This is nearly 30 percent fewer than FY 2020, when efforts were hampered by the COVID-19 pandemic, and only half of the total arrests made in FY 2019.
  • Approximately half of all arrests and removals occurred during the four months President Trump was still in office.
  • 2,718 gang members were deported. This is more than 2,000 fewer than FY 2020, despite a significant increase in gang activity at the southern border.
  • 34 deported individuals were known or suspected terrorists.
  • $316 million were spent on healthcare alone for detained illegal aliens – all covered by American taxpayers.

Many crucial data points that were included in previous iterations of this report were scrapped, including: administrative arrests by month, number of issued detainers, removals by arresting agency, and comprehensive data for criminal charges and convictions.

The administration attempted to spin their incomplete snapshot of criminal arrests in FY 2021 as a major accomplishment. However, despite the massive increase of illegal immigration into the country, far fewer criminal offenders were arrested than the previous year. Some of these categories include:

  • Homicide-related arrests: down 18 percent
  • Sexual Assault: down 22 percent
  • Assault: down 47 percent
  • Robbery: down 28 percent
  • Kidnapping: down 35 percent

All the totals included in this report confirm that the Biden administration has effectively abolished the mission of ICE. These figures are especially alarming considering that more than 828,000 illegal aliens were allowed to enter the U.S. without being detained in FY 2021. This means that approximately 14 times more illegal aliens successfully entered the country than were deported. And approximately half of those removals occurred during the less than four months that President Trump was still in office. During the first eight months of the Biden administration, ICE removed only 100 illegal aliens per day, compared to an average of 650 per day during the Trump administration.

Furthermore, near the close of the year, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas announced additional policies that restrict ICE officials from detaining and deporting essentially all immigration violators. Because of this, Americans can expect even fewer ICE apprehensions and deportations in FY 2022.