US immigration officials last year deported the largest number of undocumented immigrants in nearly a decade, surpassing the record set by Donald Trump's first term.
More than 271,000 immigrants were deported from the US in the last fiscal year, according to a report released by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency on Thursday.
The ICE report comes just weeks before President-elect Trump, who plans to make mass deportation a cornerstone of his incoming administration, takes office.
In 2021 President Joe Biden promised to pause deportations, but his administration ended up expanding them after a spike in border crossings.
In the recently published reportICE said the spike in deportations last fiscal year was partly the result of a streamlined process.
More deportation flights were going to more distant destinations, including Africa and Asia, which have not accepted U.S. deportations in years, the agency said.
The majority of deportations in fiscal year 2024. include migrants apprehended by border officials compared to those arrested by ICE inside the US.
Approximately 82 percent of the 271,000 immigrants deported this year were apprehended by border agents.
President-elect Trump has vowed to launch “the largest deportation operation in history” when he returns to office on January 20.
However, these promises are likely to collide enormous logistical and financial challenges.
Leading up to his decisive victory over Biden in November, Trump spent much of his campaign attacking the White House's border policies.
Trump's transition spokeswoman Carolyn Leavitt told Reuters that Biden's deportations paled in comparison to the high levels of illegal immigration during his presidency.
“On day one, President Trump will fix the immigration and national security nightmare that Joe Biden created by launching the largest mass deportation of illegal criminals in the history of the United States,” she said.
The number of migrant encounters along the U.S.-Mexico border hit a record high in December 2023, but has declined significantly, especially in the past few months, and is now at its lowest level since July 2020, according to Customs and Border Protection of the United States (CBP).
He also attributed the increase in deportations to improved diplomatic efforts persuading countries to take back more deportees.
Mexican authorities are also increasingly restricting the flow of migrants heading north to the US border.
In June, President Biden issued an executive order that sharply limited asylum, which, along with help from Mexico, led to a decrease in illegal border crossings.
Since then, the number of people released by the U.S. Border Patrol pending immigration court proceedings has dropped by 70 percent, the agency said.