GRAND JUNCTION — Criminal activity has been cited less frequently as a reason for deportations so far this year in spite of federal immigration authorities’ vows to focus more enforcement on the criminal element among illegal immigrants.
— from January through March — shows that Immigration and Customs Enforcement sought to deport 5,450 illegal immigrants on criminal grounds, compared with 10,732 during the same period two years ago and 9,085 for those months last year.
The analysis was done by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a research organization affiliated with Syracuse University. TRAC emphasized that the numbers for this year could increase once final reports are in but that the number is not expected to reach the levels of previous years.
“This suggests that the announced plan to increase the deportation of serious criminals through Immigration Court proceedings has not been successful,” the study concluded.
When the drop is looked at in terms of percentages, the number of deportations based on criminal activity falls from a high of 17 percent of cases for some quarters in the past three years to a current low of 14 percent.
TRAC’s latest case-by-case analysis of court proceedings also found that five countries — Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala and China — accounted for four of every five new cases filed in Immigration Court. In the past year, Mexico had the highest percentage of those whom ICE sought to deport on criminal grounds: 15.4 percent.
