Goodlatte Statement on The Obama Administration's Year-End Removal Numbers

Statement

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) issued the statement below regarding the significant drop in removals for unlawful and criminal aliens in Fiscal Year (FY) 2015. In FY 2015, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) conducted only 235,000 removals, which is down from last fiscal year's low of 315,000 removals. Of these removals, nearly 166,000 were actually recent border crossers apprehended by Customs and Border Protection -- they were not encountered by ICE.Only about 69,000 were actually apprehended where ICE has primary jurisdiction -- in the interior of the United States -- a 32% drop from FY 2014 and an over 70% drop since President Obama took office in 2008. To make matters worse, the removal of criminal aliens decreased by 25% from last year.

Chairman Goodlatte: "The Obama Administration's abysmal immigration enforcement record for the past year confirms what we already know: it refuses to use the tools provided by Congress to enforce our laws. Earlier this year the Obama Administration scrapped the Congressionally-mandated Secure Communities program, which identifies criminal aliens booked in jails across the country, and replaced it with the untested Priority Enforcement Program. The only priority contained in the Priority Enforcement Program is to ensure that our immigration laws are not enforced in the interior of the United States, which is evident in the low removal numbers.

"Additionally, the Obama Administration attributes the decrease in removals to an overall decrease in migration but recent statistics from the Border Patrol indicate we are once again experiencing a surge of unaccompanied alien minors and family units crossing our southwest border. Collectively, the President's refusal to enforce our laws makes our communities less safe and undermines the American people's trust in his ability to preserve the integrity of our immigration system."

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