The US government foresees a decline in the number of undocumented immigrants were deported in fiscal 2015, which ended on September 30, due to a large drop in the number of arrests on the border with Mexico.
EFE
"We are still counting in 2015 (the number of deportations), but I anticipate that it will be much smaller than in 2014, mainly because of the lower number of arrests", announced today the secretary of Homeland Security, Jeh Johnson, during a conference immigration organized by his department in Washington.
According to Johnson recalled, in fiscal year 2012 (from October 1, 2011 until September 30, 2012), the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE English) 490.00 deported persons; in 2013, the figure dropped to 368,000; and in fiscal 2014, down to 315,000 deportations.
By 2015, Johnson predicted "less deportations and percentage of deportations of criminals," according to the new priorities that the US President Barack Obama announced in November 2014 that they might be deported criminals and not families undocumented.
Therefore, between March and September 2015, 83% of those deported were criminals, according to Johnson.
Until August 31, 2015, a month that counts deportations this year is closed, the number of undocumented immigrants who had been expelled was 214,264, according to the ICE to which Efe had access.
Of these 214,264 undocumented immigrants, 126,283 were immigrants who had received sentences for different crimes and 87,981 were people with no criminal record, according to these data.
By nationality, until August 31, 2015, Mexicans are those who had been deported to a greater extent (132,529), followed by Guatemala (30,807), El Salvador (19,940), Honduras (18,445) and Dominicans (1,815).
One of the keys to lowering of deportations is the drop in the number of arrests at the border between the US and Mexico, as the lower entry of undocumented immigrants it is estimated that 11 million already living in the US-, also decreased the number of result deportations.
"In 2015, 331,000 people were arrested. With the exception of one year, this is the number of arrests on our southern border lowest since 1972, "Johnson said.
This is significantly less than the 1.6 million people who were arrested in 2012 on the border, 414,000 undocumented immigrants arrested in 2013 and 479,000 individuals arrested while trying to cross the border in 2014.
The increase between 2013 and 2014 occurred mainly by the large number of families and unaccompanied children who crossed the border illegally in the area of the Rio Grande Valley (South Texas), fleeing violence in their countries of origin, especially El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.
During his speech, Johnson promised to continue to fight to push through programs announced by President Barack Obama on November 20 last year to stop deporting parents with US children and youth permanent residents or undocumented immigrants who entered the country as children.
These programs depend on an appeals court in New Orleans (Louisiana), which must rule on the legality of measures that could not enter into force in February by a lawsuit filed by a coalition of 26 states, mostly Republicans.