The number of people arrested by U.S. immigration agents rose by nearly 40 percent in the first 100 days since President Donald Trump took office, according to government data released Wednesday.
RELATED:
ICE Agents Arrest Immigrant Rights Activists in Vermont
The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said the agency arrested 41,318 individuals between Jan. 22 of this year and the end of April, up from 30,028 arrests in roughly the same period last year.
“These statistics reflect President Trump’s commitment to enforce our immigration laws fairly and across the board,” ICE Acting Director Thomas Homan said.
In January, Trump signed an executive order that ended the "catch and release" policy that ICE agents followed for undocumented immigrants who are convicted of crimes. It allowed ICE agents to focus on undocumented immigrants who they deem to be a "risk to public safety or national security."
“ICE agents and officers have been given clear direction to focus on threats to public safety and national security, which has resulted in a substantial increase in the arrest of convicted criminal aliens,” Homan said.
The ICE noted that nearly two-thirds of those arrested during the period in 2017 had criminal convictions, ranging from homicide and assault to sexual abuse and drug-related charges.
While immigrants who pose a threat to national security or have criminal records are still a priority for immigration enforcement, there was a significant rise in the number of non-criminal arrests, from 4,200 in 2016 to 10,800 in 2017.
"I get asked a lot why we arrest somebody that’s not a criminal," Homan said. "Those who do enter the country illegally, they do violate the law, that is a criminal act."
He said ICE will continue to target people who have been issued a final order of removal by a federal immigration judge. “We are a nation of laws, and ignoring orders issued by federal judges undermines our constitutional government.”
In that executive order, Trump expanded the pool of undocumented immigrants considered "priorities" for deportation. But compared to the same period in 2016, the number of people deported from the U.S. this year has declined by 12 percent to 56,315.
Homan said the drop was due to the backlog in the immigration court system, the time-consuming nature of deportations of undocumented immigrants living in the country and a drop in people caught crossing the border with Mexico.
“As the data demonstrates, ICE continues to execute our mission professionally and in accordance with the law, and our communities will be much safer for it,” Homan said.