US think tank Cato Institute asserted that the policy focus of mass deportation of asylum seekers during Donald Trump’s 2017-2020 presidency caused an increase in the number of criminals released by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), in a report released on Wednesday.
The report posits that the former president’s immigration policies created a surge in the number of noncitizens convicted of crimes released by ICE, by citing executive orders, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) memos, and ICE.
Shortly after becoming president in January of 2017, Trump signed an executive order that sought mass deportations of asylum seekers changing an Obama-era policy that primarily prioritized deportations of immigrants with a criminal history. While the order on its face purported to prioritize criminal deportations still, the focus on mass deportations of asylum seekers made it fundamentally impossible for ICE to logistically focus on removing criminal noncitizens from the country.
According to the data obtained