Here is an interesting end-of-year story. US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrested almost 143,000 illegal immigrants in FY 2022, which ended on September 30. That number is almost double the number in 2021. About two-thirds of those arrests were of people with immigration violations. Most were apprehended at the southern border with no prior criminal convictions. They were transferred to ICE.

ICE deported 72,000 illegal aliens to more than 150 countries around the world. ICE also helped Border Patrol agents expel more illegal aliens from the US under Title 42.

Deportations are being done under Title 8. Title 8 is the normal course for deportation but since the pandemic, Title 42 has been used at the border. Allegedly, when Title 42 ends, DHS will go back to Title 8. The process is more formal and drawn-out than Title 42, which allows immediate expulsion at the border.

The top nationality being detained currently is Nicaraguans. The number of migrants from Nicaragua continue to increase. Mexico only accepts some nationalities when they are expelled at the border – mostly Mexicans and Central Americans. More recently, Mexico has agreed to accept Venezuelans under Title 42.

Border Patrol agents apprehended 2.2 million illegal migrants at the southern border in FY 2022, a record. Almost half of those apprehensions were expelled under Title 42 but the others were either released into the US while waiting to go through the asylum claim process or detained by ICE.

As far as ICE detentions go, there are 22,600 people in custody while another 321,000 are enrolled in an “alternatives to detention” program. This allows ICE to release illegal aliens to check in with ICE. Biden campaigned on ending deportations so in January 2021, his administration issued new ICE guidelines. The priority is to arrest illegal aliens with more serious crimes on their records and not the “non-criminals”. Open borders advocates like Biden and his administration don’t think illegally crossing the southern border is a serious enough of an infraction to warrant arrest. Since then, Republican-led states have challenged the guidelines and taken the administration to court numerous times.

While Title 42 is still in effect, the Biden administration plans to use Title 42 to expel Cuban, Nicaraguan, and Haitian illegal migrants apprehended at the border back to Mexico. The administration will, however, allow some to enter the US by air for humanitarian reasons. The new rule for Cubans, Nicaraguans, and Haitians is modeled on the Biden program or Venezuelans launched in October. That program allows up to 24,000 Venezuelans outside the US to apply to the country by air through humanitarian parole, if they have US sponsors. Venezuelans apprehended trying to cross the border illegally will be expelled back to Mexico.

The new policy will likely apply to Cubans and Haitians first with Nicaraguans at a later date.

I don’t think the timing of all the new efforts in deportations and expulsions at the border is something that just randomly happened. It’s probably because some news outlets are finally beginning to report about the Biden border crisis, though not as much as they should be doing. When Joe Biden turned El Paso into a giant tent city and local city council members began doing interviews on television, networks began to take notice. With the Republicans taking over control of Congress and threatening to impeach Secretary Mayorkas, this sudden attention on illegal aliens by ICE is no coincidence. Whatever the reason is, it’s about time.