Report: ICE made almost no interior arrests in 4-year period under Biden

Under then-President Joe Biden, federal immigration enforcement came to a near standstill in the U.S. interior, according to a new report from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Office of Inspector General (OIG).

Between 2021 and 2024, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) took “few enforcement actions using targeted leads concerning foreign nationals who overstayed or otherwise violated their nonimmigrant visa terms of admission,” the Sept. 29 report confirmed.

“As a result, foreign nationals who potentially posed threats to the United States remained at large despite their illegal status,” it continued.

A “nonimmigrant” visa is any temporary visa — such as a business, work, tourism, or student visa — and comes with a date by which the visaholder must leave the U.S., in addition to terms of conduct by which the visaholder must abide during his stay.

“Every year, millions of foreign nationals receive nonimmigrant visas to enter the United States for tourism, business, or study,” the DHS OIG report said. “Foreign nationals who stay beyond their authorized period of admission or otherwise violate the terms of their visa are classified by ICE as deportable ‘overstays.’”

Between 2021 and 2024, ICE received more than 3.1 million leads related to nonimmigrant visa overstays. Of those, nearly 105,000 were classified as potential national security or public safety threats. During that same four-year period, ICE launched fewer than 500 investigations and ultimately made eight arrests.

ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) division received leads for nearly 1,800 nonimmigrant visa overstays categorized as “Priority 1,” the highest threat to national security and public safety. HSI initiated 84 investigations and made two arrests.

ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) division was given nearly three million overstay leads deemed “Non-Priority,” launching investigations in only five cases. ERO made two resulting arrests.

Much of the failure to investigate overstays and take enforcement actions stemmed from a September 2021 DHS directive ordering ICE to focus solely on Priority 1 overstays.

“ICE conducted few nonimmigrant overstay lead-initiated investigations and arrested even fewer foreign nationals who stayed beyond or violated the terms of their admission because of the September 2021 policy that directed ICE’s limited resources only to leads posing a threat to national security, public safety, and border security,” the report said. “When ICE did attempt to pursue action on a lead, it encountered challenges verifying addresses and locating the foreign nationals present in the United States.”

Approximately 40% of illegal aliens entered the U.S. legally on nonimmigrant visas and overstayed those visas, sometimes by a matter of years. Some illegal visa overstayers have gone on to commit crimes inside the U.S.

Mexican national Rafael Govea Romero, for example, entered the U.S. on a work visa in 2018. He overstayed and, in 2023, stabbed to death 16-year-old Lizbeth Medina, whose body was discovered in a bathtub in her apartment in Edna, Texas.

Foreign national Brandon Estrada De Leon entered the U.S. on a nonimmigrant visa in 2020, with a required departure date of April 21, 2021. He did not leave, and in 2023 was arrested in Leesburg, Virginia, and charged with the abduction and repeated rape of a 12-year-old girl.