In its first months, the Biden administration set interim arrest-and-deport priorities for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and required the agency to keep a data trail.
Reform groups have since crunched the numbers and found that more than a third of the time, ICE didn’t follow those guidelines.
Priorities for ICE in 2021 were people considered threats to public safety, border security and national security.
The Phoenix Field Office took enforcement action on non priorities at a percentage lower than the national figure.
Raul Pinto, senior staff attorney for the American Immigration Council, said it's due to geography.
“Because their priorities were going to be border enforcement which was actually one of the listed priorities," Pinto said.
Yet when Phoenix agents requested to take enforcement action on non priorities supervisors signed off at a higher rate than the national percentage.
“That tells me that this process was basically a rubber stamp,” said Pinto.
ICE did not comment.
