Sen. Sessions: Deportations Drop Sharply as ICE Budget Grows

The number of deportations of illegal immigrants has fallen since fiscal year 2012 even though the Immigration and Customs Enforcement budget has increased 25 percent, Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions' office said Monday.

A press release from Sessions' office cites the following Department of Homeland Security figures:

• FY 2012: 409,849 deportations (180,970 from U.S. interior)
• FY 2015: 235,413 deportations (69,413 from U.S. interior)

"Put differently, 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," Sessions' office said.

Blame for the sharp decrease was placed on President Barack Obama's policies to "get around plain law passed by Congress," according to the statement. "Indeed, the guise was to assert that the Government lacked the resources to deport more aliens."

Former ICE Director John Morton said in a March 2011 memorandum that his agency "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 often repeated that claim, Sessions' office said, but said ICE’s budget for detention and removal actually has grown 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," Sessions' office said.

Sessions is a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest.

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