Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) doubled its arrests in the 2022 fiscal year, according to a report released by the agency Friday.
ICE conducted 142,750 administrative arrests and of that, 96,354 individuals were categorized as "other immigration violators," mainly recent border crossers.
Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) arrested 46,396 people with a criminal history, ICE said. Those arrested had an average of 4.3 charges and convictions per individual.
Homeland Security Investigations, the largest investigative agency at the Department of Homeland Security, arrested 36,685 criminal suspects and obtained 13,248 convictions, the report said.
A US Customs and Border Patrol agent closes the doors to a van carrying asylum-seekers at the US-Mexico border fence near Somerton, Arizona, Dec. 26, 2022.
Rebecca Noble/AFP via Getty Images
Removals, which ICE executes, were nowhere near the levels they were during the Trump administration, but they did rise from 2021 to 2022. ICE said it executed just over 72,000 removals in 2022, up from 59,011 in 2021 and down from 2020 which saw 185,884.
Of the more than 72,000 removals, 44,096 individuals had a criminal history, the report said.
These removals included 2,667 known or suspected gang members, 55 known or suspected terrorists, seven human rights violators, and 74 foreign fugitives wanted by their governments for crimes including homicide, rape, terrorism, and kidnapping.
The agency said they are using a more targeted approach to putting immigration detainers on people – which is a "request from ICE to state or local law enforcement agencies to notify ICE as early as possible before a removable noncitizen is released from their custody," according to the report.
Asylum-seekers line up to be processed by US Customs and Border Patrol agents at a gap in the US-Mexico border fence near Somerton, Arizona, Dec. 26, 2022.
Rebecca Noble/AFP via Getty Images
"ICE continues to disrupt transnational criminal organizations, remove threats to national security and public safety, uphold the integrity of U.S. immigration laws, and collaborate with its colleagues across government and law enforcement in pursuit of our shared mission to keep U.S. communities safe," said ICE Acting Director Tae Johnson.
According to the report's release, more than 20,000 law enforcement and support personnel responded to "complex cross-border and domestic threats," including "significant" support from ICE and roughly 1,000 officers from ERO to support the influx of migrants.
Those who are currently detained in ICE custody are mainly from Central American and South American countries, including Nicaragua, Colombia and Peru, the report said.
