Homeland committee chair blasts Biden-Harris for sharp drop in deporting criminal illegal immigrants

House Committee on Homeland Security Chairman Mark Green, R-Tenn., on Wednesday blasted the Biden-Harris administration for deporting less convicted criminal illegal immigrants from FY2021-2023 compared to the same three year period under the Trump administration.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) data in a Daily Mail report shows that removals of convicted criminal illegal immigrants between FY2021-2023 dropped by 74% compared to FY2017-2020. ICE deported more than 526,000 convicted criminal illegal immigrants between FY2017-2020, but only 134,617 from FY2021-2023.

“Under President Joe Biden, and his hand-picked ‘border czar,’ Vice President Kamala Harris, we don’t just have a crisis at our borders—we have one in the interior, as well,” Green said, reacting to the data. “These two open-borders extremists have tied the hands of ICE agents and made it almost impossible for ICE to remove those here unlawfully."

Green said the "numbers don’t lie" and argued that the border crisis under the Biden-Harris administration was self-inflicted, given that they reversed most of former President Trump's executive actions related to border security.

"On their watch, encounters have hit historic, sustained highs, while removals have dropped through the floor," he said. "Biden and Harris have utterly abandoned their oath to enforce the laws of this country—assuming they ever took that oath seriously to begin with. Meanwhile, innocent Americans continue to be victimized daily by this administration’s dereliction of duty. Enough is enough.”