ICE deports record number of immigrants in year
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director John Morton said Tuesday his agency deported nearly 400,000 individuals during the fiscal year that ended in September, the largest number of removals in the agency’s history.
Morton announced the Fiscal 2011 numbers in Washington, saying about 55 percent of those deported had felony or misdemeanor convictions. Officials said the number of those convicted of crimes was up 89 percent from 2008.
Authorities could not immediately say how many of those crimes related to re-entering the U.S. after being deported. Individuals can be convicted of a felony for returning to the U.S. or being found in the U.S. after they were deported.
Among the 396,906 individuals deported were more than 1,000 convicted of homicide. Another 5,800 were sexual offenders, and about 80,000 people were convicted of drug related crimes or driving under the influence. Last year, the total was roughly 393,000.