ICE/IMMIGRATION/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “The Trump administration significantly stepped up its arrests and deportations of undocumented immigrants last year, according to government data released Friday [12-14-18], even as other parts of the president’s hard-line immigration agenda have been blocked by Congress and courts. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said it arrested about 159,000 foreigners during the 2018 fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, an increase of 11 percent from the previous year. About 90 percent of the people arrested had criminal convictions, were facing pending criminal charges or had been previously issued a final deportation order by an immigration judge. Officials said they also deported 256,085 people last year, a 13 percent increase from fiscal year 2017. That included 5,914 undocumented immigrants, 5,872 known or suspected gang members and 42 suspected terrorists, the agency’s data show. On Friday, agency officials called the increases a result of an executive order by President Trump to rescind an earlier policy that prioritized the arrests and deportations of foreigners who had criminal records, or those who posed a threat to public safety.”
–Ron Nixon, “Immigration Arrests and Deportations Are Rising, I.C.E. Data Show,” The New York Times online, December 14, 2018