Less than a third of immigration cases processed during the final three months of the last fiscal year resulted in deportation, the Washington Times reported Sunday.
Under former President Donald Trump in 2019 and 2020, 80% of cases resulted in either removal orders or grants of voluntary departure.
Department of Homeland Security officials told the Times that the lower deportation numbers were the result of a push to expand the reach of "prosecutorial discretion" — meaning thousands of migrants were released even though judges did not rule in their favor.
DHS lawyers and migrants worked out deals by which cases were dismissed or terminated, thus allowing the migrants to remain in the U.S.
One source told the Times that the Biden administration was "pushing to break the immigration court system."
The more relaxed approach under the Biden administration comes as more than 1.4 million migrants were encountered at the southern border between February and September, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) numbers.
The Times said about half a million migrants were caught and released by DHS during the last year, with immigration courts issuing only about 40,000 or so deportation orders.
The report comes as more migrants cross the border.
The surge is overwhelming Texas state troopers patrolling an area previously affected little by the crisis, according to the Washington Examiner.
Law enforcement officials told the news outlet that areas in west Texas have been overrun by groups of males crossing the border and trying to evade capture, as opposed to families and children crossing at other border points seeking aid and assistance.
A law enforcement source within CBP says between 1,800 and 2,000 migrants are managing to elude apprehension daily along the southwest border, Breitbart reported Friday.
The total number of migrants escaping apprehension, a term referred to as the "got-away count," reached 75,000 in the fiscal year of 2022, beginning in October this year. Currently, the migrant got-away count for 2022 is likely to exceed more than 400,000 as reported in fiscal year 2021, the source revealed to the outlet.
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