The agency drew fierce criticism under former President Trump for arresting and removing anyone in the country illegally regardless of criminal history or community ties.
WASHINGTON — Immigration enforcement in the U.S. would be more targeted under President Joe Biden than under his predecessor, with authorities directed to focus on people in the country illegally who pose a threat, according to guidelines released Thursday. The guidelines set a new course for U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement, which drew fierce criticism under President Donald Trump for arresting and removing anyone in the country illegally regardless of criminal history or community ties. Under Biden, ICE would primarily apprehend and remove people who pose a threat to national security, committed crimes designated as “aggravated” felonies or recently crossed the border. It is the latest break from Trump’s immigration policies, but it is also far from the notion of “abolish ICE” that became a rallying cry among some progressives angered by what they considered indiscriminate enforcement. Trump, whose administration took hundreds of measures to restrict both legal and illegal immigration, early on directed ICE to apprehend anyone who was in the country illegally. In June 2019, he tweeted that “next week ICE will begin the process of removing the millions of illegal aliens who have illicitly found their way into the United States.” That never happened. Total deportations were higher under the first term of President Barack Obama, who also made national security and public safety an enforcement priority, than under Trump in part because many cities and states, opposed to his administration’s approach to immigration, balked at cooperating with ICE on removals.
