The New York Post, quoting recent comments made by acting director of Citizenship and Immigration Services Ken Cuccinelli, reported on Monday that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is ready to deport one million illegal aliens.
Speaking to CBS' "Face The Nation" on Sunday, Cuccinelli said, ”They’re ready to just perform their mission, which is to go and find and detain and then deport the proximity one million people who have final removal orders. They’ve been all the way through the due process and have final removal orders.”
He went on, "I’m just pointing out that the pool of those with final removal orders … is enormous. And it’s important to note, here we are talking about ICE doing its job as if it’s special. And really this should be going on on a rolling basis for ICE and they’ve been interfered with effectively and held up by the politics of Washington."
This comes after President Trump had delayed announced ICE raids, calling on Congress to take action and fix asylum laws and immigration loopholes.
At the request of Democrats, I have delayed the Illegal Immigration Removal Process (Deportation) for two weeks to see if the Democrats and Republicans can get together and work out a solution to the Asylum and Loophole problems at the Southern Border. If not, Deportations start!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 22, 2019
Since no agreement has since been reached, Cuccinelli said that ICE is ready to do its job and begin mass deportations.
The Trump administration has been relatively soft on deportations as compared to its predecessor, as the New York Post notes:
Under Obama, ICE deported around 385,000 people annually each fiscal year from 2009-2011 and reached a high of 409,000 in fiscal year 2012. The numbers fell below 250,000 in fiscal years 2015 and 2016. Under Trump, deportations fell to 226,000 in fiscal year 2017 and climbed slightly to more than 250,000 in fiscal year 2018.
So far this fiscal year, deportations have hit 282,000.