Every year, hundreds of thousands of immigrants and foreign nationals in the US are removable or inadmissible under the law and their arrest, detention, and removal is overseen by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The DHS also maintains records about these enforcement actions and each year publishes statistics about the removals and arrests. For the year 2010, the DHS has reported these statistics:
– In 2010, the DHS removed 387,000 non-US persons from the US. The vast majority (73%) were from Mexico. However, 8% were from Guatemala, 6% were from Honduras, and 5% were from El Salvador.
– About 29% of all removals by the DHS in 2010 were expedited removals. This accounts for 111,000 of all removals.
– Of the 517,000 non-US persons the DHS apprehended or detained in 2010, 83% were from Mexico.
– In 2010, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detained 363,000 non-US persons
– ICE was responsible for removing 169,000 foreign nationals with criminal records from the US in 2010. 62% of these nationals were involved in illegal drugs, immigration offenses, or criminal traffic crimes. In addition, 7.2% of criminals removed were convicted of assault while 3.2% were guilty of larceny.
– Without a removal order, the DHS returned 476,000 non-US persons to their countries of origin in 2010. This number is a decline of 19% when compared with 2009. Most non-US persons removed without a removal order were from Mexico or Canada (82%), the Philippines (4%) and China (2%).
– In 2010, DHS apprehended 516,992 persons. This was the fifth year in a row that the number of such apprehensions increased.
– ICE made 17, 836 arrests in 2010 under its Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) program and 35, 774 arrests under its National Fugitive Operations program.
– Most of the arrests (97%) the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) were along the US’s Southwest border. The number of apprehensions along this border, however, declined 17% between 2009 and 2010.
– The number of removals from the US declined by 2% between 2009 and 2010. In 2010, there were 387,242 removals of non-US persons from the US. The majority of these persons (73%) were from Mexico. However, 8% were from Guatemala, 6% were nationals of Honduras, and 5% were El Salvador nationals. Overall, 92% of removals were from these countries in 2010.
– 34% of all removals in 2010 were due to reinstatements of previous orders.
More statistics and detailed charts are available from the DHS at illegal drug activity, immigration-related offenses, and criminal traffic offenses.