ICE Says It Will Take 140 Years to Deport Illegals from Border Surge

ICE’s chief said Wednesday that at current deportation rates it would take 140 years to remove all the illegal immigrants who came in during the border surge of the past two years.

Matt Albence, acting director at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said the border surge over the past two years added 900,000 more cases to ICE’s non-detained docket, which now totals more than 3.3 million.

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“We arrested about 2,500 non-criminal fugitives last year. If we do that, based on just the numbers that came in the last two years, it would take us about 140 years to clear up that backlog,” Mr. Albence said.

He was defending ICE’s significant budget increase request for fiscal year 2021, which envisions being able to detain an average of 60,000 migrants a day.

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