Washington, March 3
Nearly three million "illegal aliens" have left the United States of America during President Donald Trump's second term as a result of stepped-up enforcement, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem told lawmakers on Tuesday, anchoring her defence of the administration's immigration policy in a cascade of numbers.
"Nearly three million illegal aliens have left the United States as a result of the administration's enforcement efforts," Noem said.
That total includes "2.2 million that have voluntarily left and returned back to their native countries" and "more than 675,000 detainments and deportations".
The DHS Secretary said border enforcement metrics have shifted sharply.
"Daily encounters along the southwest border declined by 96 per cent compared to the Biden administration's daily average," Noem testified, adding that the US has reached "the lowest levels ever recorded in US Customs and Border Protection's history".
For "ten straight months", she said, "the Border Patrol has released zero illegal aliens into the interior of the United States."
Chairman Charles Grassley cited separate figures that "in 2025, border crossings decreased 93 per cent".
Noem also stressed arrests tied to national security and gangs.
ICE has arrested "over 1,500 known and suspected terrorists" and "more than 7,700 known gang members," she said.
"A majority of the aliens that were arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement have a criminal record."
On narcotics, she said that fentanyl trafficking at the southern border "has been cut by more than 56 per cent" compared to the same period in 2024.
Total interdiction efforts, she added, have prevented "1.7 billion lethal doses of drugs" from reaching American communities.
Unaccompanied minors were another focus.
Under the previous administration, "more than 450,000 unaccompanied alien children went missing or were lost," Noem said.
DHS has "located about 145,000 of them," she added, pledging, "we will not stop until every single one of those children is found."
She also pointed to what DHS has documented as an "8,000 per cent increase in death threats" against US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers and their families, and "more than 1,300 per cent increase in assaults".
Democrats countered with their own figures.
Senator Richard Durbin said less than 14 per cent of immigrants arrested during Trump's first year back in office had charges or convictions for violent criminal offences.
He also referenced what he described as a "3,000 person a day arrest quota", saying that such a target would require sweeping enforcement beyond the "worst of the worst".
Noem said that DHS is enforcing laws "that US Congress has passed" and defended the use of administrative warrants as "the process that Congress has given us".
In "400,000 cases that ICE has used these administrative warrants, only 28 times have they been used to enter a home," she said.
The hearing reflected how immigration policy in Washington has become a battle of statistics as much as ideology.
Republicans cite falling encounters, mass departures and drug interdictions as proof of restored border control.
Democrats say that headline numbers obscure due process concerns and the human toll of enforcement.
Immigration remains one of the most divisive issues in US politics.
The DHS, created after the September 11 attacks that killed nearly 3,000 Americans, now sits at the centre of that debate -- balancing border security, enforcement and constitutional limits in a polarised political climate.
- IANS
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