The number of immigrants deported by Immigration and Customs Enforcement dropped for the third consecutive year in 2015, according to figures the Department of Homeland Security released Tuesday.
The data also shows a decline in the number of people attempting to cross the border illegally into the United States, even as talk of cracking down on illegal entries from Mexico has played an outsized role in the 2016 Republican presidential debates.
ICE deported some 235,413 undocumented immigrants in 2015, down from 315,934 last year.
The number of people apprehended at the border for crossing illegally similarly dropped by about 150,000 as compared to last year. This decrease is significant because the figure for illegal apprehensions offers a general indication as to how many people pass undetected into the United States each year. The number released Tuesday is roughly 80 percent lower than the 1.6 million apprehensions in 2000, according to DHS officials.
“Only one time since 1972 has this number been lower,” an official from the department said Tuesday on a call with reporters. “The investments in border security have proven effective. We’re seeing fewer attempts to illegally cross the border.”
Both legal and illegal immigration from Mexico have plunged in recent years, to the point that more migrants are now returning to their home country than coming to the U.S.
But the arrival of tens of thousands of people from Central America, largely unaccompanied minors and mothers traveling with children, over the last two years has kept national attention on the border. The vast majority of the mothers and children come from the violence-plagued countries of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras and often petition for asylum or some other form of humanitarian relief upon arriving.
In addition to the changing immigration dynamics, President Barack Obama has sought to expand relief for more undocumented immigrants.
The Obama administration implemented wide-reaching executive actions last year aimed at shielding more than 4 million people with ties to the U.S. from deportation. The most expansive of the measures would have created a program to give work authorization and a temporary, renewable reprieve from deportation to parents of U.S. citizens or legal permanent residents. A legal challenge brought by 26 U.S. states, however, has kept the program from being implemented.
At the same time, the administration has expanded the controversial use of family detention in order to dissuade Central American women from crossing into the United States with their children.
U.S. Circuit Judge Dolly Gee ordered the administration in August to end the family detention policy, after ruling the month before that the practice violated the 1997 Flores settlement. The agreement requires immigration officials to keep undocumented children in the least restrictive setting possible and to generally favor a policy of releasing them. Administration officials appealed the ruling.
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