Immigration Enforcement in the United States: The Rise of a Formidable Machinery, By Doris Meissner, Donald M. Kerwin, Muzaffar Chishti, and Claire Bergeron. Migration Policy Institute, January 2013.
“The US government spends more on federal immigration enforcement than on all other principal federal criminal law enforcement agencies combined, and has allocated nearly $187 billion for immigration enforcement since 1986. Deportations have reached record highs, border apprehensions 40-year lows, and more noncitizens than ever before are in immigration detention. The report traces the evolution of the immigration enforcement system, particularly in the post-9/11 era, in terms of budgets, personnel, enforcement actions, and technology analyzing how individual programs and policies have resulted in a complex, interconnected, cross-agency system.”
