The Obama Administration has boasted that it deported a record number of illegal aliens in the 2010
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Figures from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), however, show that during the first nine months of 2010, 279,035 aliens were removed from the country as a result of ICE enforcement. This number is ten (10) percent more than the same period during 2008 — the last year of the Bush administration.
While the total numbers of noncitizens ICE deported has grown, removal of aliens who have merely overstayed their visas or crossed the border illegally dropped for the first time in the last five years, as ICE gave priority to removing those convicted of crimes.
On average, each deportation cost taxpayers more than $6,000 in 2010, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement budget numbers. The amount Americans spend annually to detain and deport immigrants increased by more than 100 percent since 2005, to $2.55 billion in 2010. During the same period, the number of people deported more than doubled, to more than 390,000.The Department of Homeland Security says the investment to step up enforcement of federal immigration laws has been worth it.