Obama Administration "Enforcement Now, Enforcement Forever" Policy Boosts Deportation Numbers by Removing Traffic, Immigration Violators: Do You Feel Safer?

Suzanne Gamboa of AP reports that, while the Obama administration's enforcement crackdown has resulted in record numbers of deportations, there have been huge increases in deportations of people guilty of violations of traffic violations (including driving under the influence) and the immigration laws, accoriding to dcouments released by the U.S. government. This undercuts the claims of the administration, such as in the memorandum on the exercise of prosecutorial discretion by Immigration & Customs Enforcement Director John Morton, that it is focusing removal efforts on "criminal aliens" who pose a serious danger to public safety. For analysis by Elias Groll on on Politico.com, click here.

Leslie Berestein Rojas on Multi-American offers us the raw numbers showing that, if the Obama administration continues at this pace, it will deport more noncitizens this year than ever before. ICE records through May 23 show that 243,821 people have been deported since last Oct. 1, the start of the 2011 fiscal year.

Here are the ICE removal numbers from recent years:

FY 2010 392,862

FY 2009 389,834

FY 2008 369,221

FY 2007 291,060

The average daily population of immigrants in detention rose lightly from 30,295 in FY 2007 to 33,366 in FY 2020.

KJ