Trump v. Biden-Harris: Notable Full Fiscal Year Immigration Enforcement Comparisons
Under President Joe Biden and “Border Czar” Kamala Harris through current Fiscal Year (FY) data. U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has recorded more than 10.3 million encounters at America’s borders, including more than 8.3 million at the Southwest border alone.
For comparison, there were more encounters in FY 2023 under Biden and Harris than President Donald Trump’s entire time in office.
These are also just the reported numbers and do not account for the roughly 2 million known “gotaways” who were able to elude Border Patrol agents.
Removals are the ultimate measure of effective immigration enforcement, and these numbers clearly demonstrate the stunning decrease under President Biden and a “border czar” who previously supported the notion of abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Under President Trump, ICE removed illegal aliens at a rate of 32% of the aggregate number of encounters. Under Biden and Harris, ICE has only removed aliens at a rate of 3.5% of the aggregate number of encounters.
If the Biden-Harris Administration had simply kept pace with the prior, there would have been 2,535,758 illegal aliens removed, as opposed to the 273,768 that have been removed. Also, countless American lives would have been saved.
The number of convicted criminal aliens removed over the last three fiscal years combined (134,617) is less than the number of criminal aliens removed in two single years under President Trump (FY2018-19).
Overall, convicted criminal alien removals have decreased by 74%, completely undercutting the assertion by Kamala Harris that ICE has merely increased its focus on criminal aliens. In fact, her policies have ensured that most illegal aliens can remain in the country indefinitely—even those who have committed a crime. So, instead of working to swiftly remove the hundreds of thousands of criminal aliens with convictions or pending charges, Harris and her henchman Alejandro Mayorkas have made it more difficult for ICE officers to even arrest them. The American people continue to pay the price.
With current ICE arrest totals (both criminal and immigration violators) making up a fraction of what they used to be under President Trump, staffing has remained level. This only further illustrates the fallacy continually espoused by Kamala Harris and agency officials that ICE does not have the staff to arrest more of those who are unlawfully present, and thus, can only arrest specific criminals defined by an anti-enforcement policy memo. This has led to far fewer criminals being arrested, and more innocent victims of heinous crimes committed by criminal aliens allowed to roam free.
Despite a historic, self-inflicted border crisis that continues to ravage American communities, a deliberate decision has been made by Kamala Harris and Alejandro Mayorkas to not fully utilize available detention beds. It should be further noted that almost every individual who crosses the border illegally is subject, by law, to mandatory detention. President Trump recognized this, properly reallocating resources to create – and fill – more beds than Congress provided.