Immigration arrests drop in the U.S. as ICE focuses on 'serious criminals' 

In the last year, immigration-related arrests in the United States have fallen as the Biden administration shifts its priorities to people with a criminal background, officials said on Friday.

The U.S. Immigration and Customs enforcement annual report shows that arrests have dropped nearly 40% compared to the previous year. ICE arrested 74,082 non-citizens, compared to 103,603 in the fiscal year 2019 and 140,000 three years before. 

In the past year, the agency has attempted to efficiently use its law enforcement resources and focus on apprehending immigrants with a serious criminal background, including individuals who have been convicted of “aggravated felonies” or have been charged as sex offenders.

During the last year, ICE almost doubled its arrests of immigrants with aggravated felony convictions, apprehending 12,025 individuals. 

ICE’s new strategy also limited law enforcement actions at schools, hospitals, and other sensitive locations. As a result, 

“As the annual report’s data reflects, ICE’s officers and special agents focused on cases that delivered the greatest law enforcement impact in communities across the country while upholding our values as a nation,” acting Director Tae Johnson said.

Furthermore, deportations have fallen by almost 70%, to the lowest in the agency’s history with 59,011. 

The figures in the annual report show the Biden administration's change of strategy from the Trump administration when apprehensions were conducted regardless of the immigrant's circumstances. 

"We have fundamentally changed immigration enforcement in the interior," Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in an interview with CBS News earlier this year. "For the first time ever, our policy explicitly states that a non-citizen's unlawful presence in the United States will not, by itself, be a basis for the initiation of an enforcement action.