The Patriot Post® · ICE Gets $680M Budget Windfall, Yet Deportations Plunge

A new study published by the Subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest, chaired by Sen. Jeff Sessions, proves that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) can’t blame the persistent drop in deportations on a lack of funding. According to the report, titled “Deportations Plummet As ICE Receives More Resources”:

> ICE removed nearly 43 percent fewer total aliens from the United States in FY 2015 than it did in FY 2012 — and nearly 62 percent fewer aliens from the interior of the United States. This dramatic decline in deportations is the direct result of policies implemented by the Obama Administration to get around plain law passed by Congress. Indeed, the guise was to assert that the Government lacked the resources to deport more aliens. The former Director of ICE, John Morton, issued a memorandum in March of 2011, in which he outlined ICE’s purported enforcement “priorities,” and claimed that setting such priorities was necessary because ICE “only has resources to remove approximately 400,000 aliens per year, less than 4 percent of the estimated illegal alien population in the United States.” The Administration has used this line repeatedly.“

However, the report continues, "ICE’s budget for detention and removal operations has grown substantially — from $2,750,843,000 in FY2012, to $3,431,444,000 in FY2015. Moreover, just last year, the Administration shifted $113 million away from ICE’s budget for detention and removal of aliens. Thus, while ICE’s detention and removal budget grew approximately 25 percent from FY 2012 to FY 2015, the total number of aliens it deported from the United States decreased by nearly 43 percent.” We’ve said repeatedly that much of today’s immigration problems stem from a lack of enforcement measures. Meanwhile, the Obama administration will milk taxpayers as much as it can — all while engaging in outright fraud. Not to mention releasing nearly 20,000 criminal aliens…