Criminal prosecution trends have been driven largely by referrals from Customs and Border Protection (CBP) rather than by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) or Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). Yet the trend in CBP-referred prosecutions does not map neatly onto the trend in Border Patrol apprehensions along the Southwest border. In fact, just as apprehensions began climbing sharply in March of 2019, criminal prosecutions began to fall. Criminal referrals were driven not by rates of unlawful border crossing, but by policy decisions directing CBP and federal prosecutors to focus on specific crimes for federal prosecution under a so-called "zero tolerance" policy. However, while prosecutions climbed they fell far short of their goal of zero tolerance.

Prosecutions fell after Attorney General Sessions resigned. Sessions had personally championed prioritizing criminal prosecution of illegal entry offenses. Other demands for staffing time competed for attention. With limited investigative and prosecution resources, devoting more resources to prosecuting immigration offenses inevitably had meant fewer resources were available to pursue other types of federal offenses.

Criminal immigration prosecutions outside of the Southwest border districts since President Trump assumed office have remained well below the levels of all but the last two years of the Obama Administration.

These findings are based on case-by-case records obtained through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuits by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) at Syracuse University.

To read the full report, go to:

https://trac.syr.edu/tracreports/crim/594/

In addition to these most recent figures, TRAC continues to offer free monthly reports on selected government agencies such as the FBI, ATF, DHS and the IRS. TRAC's reports also monitor program categories such as immigration, drugs, weapons, and white collar crime. Even more detailed criminal enforcement information for the period from FY 1986 through October 2019 is available to TRACFed subscribers via Express and Going Deeper tools. Go to http://tracfed.syr.edu for more information. Customized reports for a specific agency, district, program, lead charge or judge are available via the TRAC Data Interpreter, either as part of a TRACFed subscription or on a per-report basis. Go to

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