More Than Half A Million Illegal Immigrants Deported From US: DHS

Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times,

More than 527,000 illegal immigrants have been removed from the United States so far under the Trump administration, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said in a statement on Oct. 27.

“The Trump Administration is on pace to shatter historic records and deport nearly 600,000 illegal aliens by the end of President Donald Trump’s first year since returning to office. More than 2 million illegal aliens have left the U.S., including 1.6 million who have voluntarily self-deported and over 527,000 deportations,” DHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin said.

“This is just the beginning. President Trump and Secretary Noem have jumpstarted an agency that was hamstrung and barred from doing its job for the last four years.”

DHS highlighted the CBP Home app, which illegal immigrants can use to notify the federal government of their intention to depart the United States.

The government is currently offering illegal immigrants $1,000 and free flights to self-deport back to their home nations. This gives them a chance to come back legally. Those arrested and deported won’t be able to return to the United States, DHS said.

According to the DHS, law enforcement has been removing the “worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens” from the country, including rapists, murderers, drug dealers, and pedophiles, despite facing opposition from politicians in sanctuary jurisdictions.

Sanctuary jurisdictions are places where local officials refuse to enforce immigration laws or comply with federal immigration authorities. According to an Aug. 8 list from the Department of Justice (DOJ), 12 states and 18 local jurisdictions in the country are currently classified as following such policies.

Meanwhile, DHS and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) operations against illegal immigrants have faced widespread protests in places such as Portland and Chicago, which are on the DOJ’s sanctuary jurisdiction list.

Currently, ICE has around 129 detention facilities across the United States to house illegal immigrants before presenting them before an immigration judge or removing them from the country.

The Trump administration has also faced legal challenges in court. For instance, President Donald Trump had said he wanted to federalize the National Guard in Oregon to tackle unrest in Portland and protect ICE facilities. On Oct. 24, an appeals court temporarily paused the National Guard deployment in Portland.

“In the face of a historic number of injunctions from activist judges and threats to law enforcement, DHS, ICE, and CBP have not just closed the border, but made historic strides to carry out President Trump’s promise of arresting and deporting illegal aliens who have invaded our country,” McLaughlin said.

“Illegal aliens are hearing our message to leave now or face the consequence: Migrants are now turning back before they even reach our borders. Migration through Panama’s Darien Gap is down 99.99 percent.”

Democrats Launch Investigation

Democratic lawmakers have criticized the illegal immigrant crackdown initiated by the Trump administration.

An Oct. 20 statement from the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform said Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) have launched an investigation into DHS over reports of unlawful detentions of U.S. citizens and immigrants by federal agents.

In a letter to DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, the lawmakers said there have been “reports of excessive, shocking behavior by CBP and ICE agents directed at U.S. citizens.” The letter claimed that more than 170 U.S. citizens had been detained by immigration agents over the previous nine months.

“The impact of these arrests has not been evenly distributed across the country, and cities like Chicago, Portland, Washington, and Los Angeles have been targeted heavily by ICE and CBP. Troublingly, the pattern of U.S. Citizen arrests coincides with an alarming increase in racial profiling—particularly of Latinos,” the letter stated.

The lawmakers demanded that Noem submit certain information to the House Oversight Committee by Nov. 3, including the number of American citizens detained by CBP, ICE, or DHS since Jan. 20.

DHS said in its Oct. 27 statement that 70 percent of arrests made by ICE were of criminal illegal immigrants convicted or charged with a crime in the United States.

In an Oct. 21 post on X, Noem said that more than 480,000 criminal illegal immigrants were arrested in the nine months under the Trump administration.

“What our law enforcement has accomplished for the American people, under President Trump, is nothing short of extraordinary,” she wrote.

“We will continue to fulfill @POTUS Trump’s promise to Make America Safe Again, secure our borders, and protect our people.”