Did the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency really break last year’s record for deportations? In claiming it did, by processing 392,862 deportations, ICE used some slick accounting procedures, and also persuaded some immigrants to leave the country voluntarily and forego their right to a legal hearing.

 

The Center for Investigative Reporting found ICE’s deportation total included more than 19,000 immigrants who actually left the U.S. during the previous fiscal year. Also, ICE extended the operation of a Mexican repatriation program by five weeks, longer than it ever has before, so the agency could add another 6,500 deportations to the total.

 

Finally, in the closing weeks of the fiscal year, ICE officials told field agents “to bypass backlogged immigration courts and time-consuming deportation hearings whenever possible,” according to the Center’s story. This resulted in immigration officers encouraging foreign nationals “to accept a quick pass to their countries without a negative mark on their immigration record.”

 

These moves accounted for 25,000 deportations that allowed the agency to eclipse the previous record of 389,834.

-Noel Brinkerhoff

 

Unusual Methods Helped ICE Break Deportation Record, E-Mails and Interviews Show (by Andrew Becker, Center for Investigative Reporting)