Trump administration on track to break deportation record by end of first year: ‘Just the beginning’

With more than 500,000 illegal aliens deported since President Donald Trump took office in January, the administration is on track to surpass the record number of illegal aliens deported out of the United States.

Since Trump returned to the Oval Office on Jan. 20, the administration has deported more than 515,000 illegal aliens, according to a senior official at the Department of Homeland Security.

Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security Tricia McLaughlin told Fox News Digital that the administration is “on track to break historic records” by deporting 600,000 illegal immigrants by the end of Trump’s first year back in office.

In all, more than 2 million illegal aliens have left the United States, including 1.6 million who voluntarily deported themselves, in addition to more than 515,000 people who were deported, she said.

The Department of Homeland Security has arrested another 485,000 illegal aliens since Trump took office.

McLaughlin said that “this is just the beginning” and that Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem “have created an agency that has been vilified and prevented from doing its work for the last four years.”

“Illegal aliens are hearing our message to leave now or face the consequences. In fact, migrants are now returning before they reach our border,” McLaughlin said, noting what she said was a 99.99 percent decline in migration through Panama’s Darien Gap, the main immigration route into the United States.

“In the face of a historic number of injunctions issued by activist judges, ICE, CBP, and the U.S. Coast Guard have made historic progress in implementing President Trump’s promise to arrest and deport illegal aliens who have invaded our country.”

Just this weekend, the Department of Homeland Security said it continued its sweep of “the worst of the worst” illegal aliens across the country amid the ongoing government shutdown.

Over the weekend, the Department of Homeland Security said it had illegally arrested people convicted of child rape, assault, ramming, kidnapping and other crimes.

Among those arrested was Eric Xavier Romero, a Dominican citizen, who the agency said was convicted of raping a child in Boston. Another illegal Guatemalan national, German Osvaldo Cortez Chajon, was arrested this weekend after being found guilty of traveling to meet a child to commit an illegal sex act in Dale County, Alabama. A third illegal citizen, Mexican national Graciano Lopez Flores, was arrested after being found guilty of indecent liberties with a child in Orange County, North Carolina.

Also in North Carolina, ICE arrested Shahid Hassan, an undocumented person from Bangladesh, who was convicted of simple assault, possession of drug paraphernalia, unlawful carrying of a concealed handgun, driving while impaired, violation of probation, felony theft, and violation of a domestic violence protective order in Wake County.

Just north, ICE arrested Van Pham of Laos, who was convicted of five counts of kidnapping and burglary in Fairfax County, Virginia.

In Massachusetts, ICE arrested Patricia Pimental Cordero, of the Dominican Republic, who was indicted on two counts of hit-and-run in Lawrence, Massachusetts.

Ramona Mercado Vasquez of the Caribbean island of Dominica, another illegal, was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Bergen County, New Jersey, after being convicted of kidnapping and robbery.

In Wisconsin, Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested Mexican citizen Carlette Zagal Salazar, who was convicted of drug trafficking.

Commenting on the arrests, McLaughlin told Fox News Digital: “Nothing — not even a government shutdown — will slow us down from making America safe again.”

“While Democrats in Congress continue to keep the government closed, our law enforcement officers at Immigration and Customs Enforcement are not slowing down to arrest the worst illegal alien criminals,” she criticized the Democratic Party.