President Trump is succeeding on his campaign promise to ramp up deportations of illegal immigrants, federal statistics released Tuesday reveal.
The statistics show that there were 49,983 orders from immigration judges to remove illegal immigrants between February 1 and July 31 and an additional 7,086 illegal immigrants who have agreed to leave voluntarily. This is a 30.9 percent increase over the same time period in 2016.
Shortly after getting into office President Trump signed an executive order calling for increased deportations. America’s immigration courts are facing a historic backlog — with some immigrants waiting years for their day in court — and the Justice Department has hired 54 immigration judges since Trump took office to address this specific issue. (RELATED: Immigration Courts Face Staggering Backlog)
A memo signed by then-Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly authorized the deportation of illegal immigrants who have been in the U.S. for less than two years without the use of a court hearing. This has yet to be implemented, and the DOJ said Tuesday that it is reviewing “internal practices, procedures, and technology in order to identify ways in which it can further enhance immigration judges’ productivity without compromising due process.”