Removal numbers have traditionally consisted of legal immigrants who have committed crimes, those who overstay visas, or illegal aliens caught inside the country.The immigration statistics yearbook states that removals are the compulsory and confirmed movement of an inadmissible or deportable alien out of the United States based on an order of removal.An alien who is removed has administrative or criminal consequences placed on subsequent reentry owing to the fact of the removal.In the past, removal numbers did not include “returns,” who are Mexican nationals caught illegally crossing the border by the Border Patrol and returned.According to the yearbook, returns are the confirmed movement of an inadmissible or deportable alien out of the United States not based on an order of removal.
Most of the voluntary returns are of Mexican nationals who have been apprehended by the U.S. Border Patrol and are returned to Mexico.The Obama administration has started counting certain “returns” as “removals” in order to artificially inflate the numbers and create a “record level” of deportations. Specifically, those caught by the Border Patrol who are shuttled to a different town along the border before they are returned are being dishonestly counted as deportations.
Padding the Numbers: The Alien Transfer Exit Program Since 2011, the Obama administration has counted removals from the Alien Transfer Exit Program (ATEP) as ICE deportations, which artificially inflates ICE removal numbers. According to a source in a Border Patrol field office, “the only reason this group [in the ATEP] program is in detention at all is for the purpose of padding ICE’s year-end removal statistics.”Created in 2008, ATEP is a program that moves Mexican nationals apprehended in one Border Patrol Sector to another Sector before removing them to Mexico. There are no penalties or bars attached when illegal immigrants are sent back via ATEP and they can simply attempt re-entry. As a result, illegal immigrants who are subject to ATEP can return to the U.S. numerous times only to be counted as removals each successive time they reenter illegally and are apprehended at the border.