Obama’s Deportation Budget Grows, While Deportations Slide

According to analysis by a Senate Subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest, the budget for deportations has grown considerably over the past four years, while the number of deportations has dropped.

According to data obtained by Breitbart News, the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has deported 43 percent less people from the US in FY 2015, as compared to FY 2012. At the same time, the budget for the agency has increased by some 25 percent over the same period.

In FY 2012, ICE deported 409,849 from the interior and border areas combined, but the number has been declining progressively, dropping to 235,413 in FY 2015.

The number of deportations from the interior of the country has dropped by 62 percent, according to the data.

Over the same time period ICE has boosted their budget from $2,750,843,000 in FY 2012 to $3,431,444,000 in FY 2015.

The Obama administration suggested that the significant decline in deportations is due to a "lack of resources." The subcommittee, chaired by Republican Senator Jeff Sessions, claims that the numbers are a result of the administration's tendency to water down immigration law by skirting Congress, adding that the resources excuse was offered as a  justification for the administration's executive amnesty programs, announced in 2014.

The subcommittee emphasized that deportations of criminal aliens have dropped as well, despite the Obama administration's vows that it prioritizes this type of deportation.

"ICE removed 235,390 criminal aliens from the United States in FY 2012, as compared with 139,368 in FY 2015 — meaning that it deported nearly 41 percent fewer criminal aliens last year with 25 percent more resources than it had in FY 2012," the subcommittee's analysis reads.