Keep Factually independent
Whether you agree or disagree with our analysis, these conversations matter for democracy. We don't take money from political groups - even a $5 donation helps us keep it that way.
How did the Secure Communities and Priority Enforcement Program affect removal numbers under Obama?
Executive summary
Secure Communities, launched before and expanded during the Obama years, vastly increased fingerprint-based matches that fed ICE removals — ICE reported Secure Communities had produced more than 142,000 removals by FY2011 and other tallies attribute hundreds of thousands of removals to the program through FY2014 [1] [2]. In response to criticism that Secure Communities swept up many non‑serious offenders, DHS announced in November 2014 that it would replace Secure Communities with the Priority Enforcement Program (PEP) to focus on serious criminals and recent border crossers [3] [4].
1. Secure Communities: a fingerprint pipeline that scaled removals
Secure Communities used a routine practice — sending arrestees’ fingerprints to federal databases — to flag noncitizens for ICE, and ICE credited the program with large removal figures: by September 2011 ICE said over 11 million fingerprint submissions produced 692,788 matches and “more than 142,000” removals attributable to Secure Communities by FY2011 [1]. More expansive tallies from ICE and affiliated reporting count cumulative removals tied to Secure Communities in the hundreds of thousands through FY2014 [2] [5].
2. Impact on the number and composition of removals under Obama
Multiple accounts show removals were especially high in the early Obama years — interior removals averaged over 200,000 per year in his first term and total annual removals peaked in that period — and scholars link much of the surge to policies like Secure Communities that increased interior interior‑initiated enforcement [6] [7]. The data reported by advocacy groups and oversight entities indicate Secure Communities did not remove only the “worst” offenders: a significant share of removals involved individuals with lower‑level convictions or no convictions, prompting critiques that the program broadened the pool of removable people [1] [8].
3. Criticisms that drove policy change to PEP
By 2014 many localities and officials complained Secure Communities undermined community trust, led to legal challenges, and swept up non‑serious offenders — pressure that the Obama administration cited when announcing a shift to prioritization and the creation of PEP to emphasize national‑security threats, serious criminals, and recent border crossers [9] [3]. Opponents in Congress framed the November 2014 changes differently, arguing PEP weakened a tool that had identified and removed large numbers of convicted noncitizens — citing ICE figures that credited Secure Communities with removing hundreds of thousands, including many Level 1 (most serious) offenders [5] [2].
4. What PEP changed — and what it did not (according to DHS/ICE)
DHS described PEP as narrowing operational practice: it replaced blanket detainers with a policy designed to focus enforcement on high‑priority removable noncitizens and to restore local trust so jails would continue to notify ICE about serious offenders [3] [4]. The Administration emphasized that “removals of criminals are up 80 percent” under its targeted enforcement approach; DHS framed PEP as a refinement to achieve that focus without losing the ability to identify criminals [3]. Available sources do not provide a unified, quantitative before‑and‑after breakdown in this set showing exactly how annual removal totals changed solely because of PEP versus other factors (not found in current reporting).
5. Disagreement among observers: enforcement gains versus community harm
Conservative and enforcement‑focused analysts present Secure Communities as highly effective at identifying and removing criminal aliens and cite large removal counts tied to the program [10] [5]. Civil‑rights and immigrant‑advocacy organizations and some scholars counter that Secure Communities produced many removals of low‑level offenders and produced community fear that discouraged reporting of crimes — arguments that helped build support for PEP [1] [8]. Both perspectives point to large removal numbers, but they disagree sharply on whether the program was appropriately targeted.
6. Longer arc: reversal and legacy
PEP itself was short‑lived as a named program: the priority memos and PEP were rolled out in November 2014, but after the 2017 administration change, the Secure Communities interoperability and program branding were restored, and ICE later tallied Secure Communities‑era removals in the hundreds of thousands [4] [2]. That reversal highlights that the practical effect on long‑term removal totals depends on administration policy choices and broader enforcement priorities, not only the program’s technical fingerprint matches [4] [2].
Limitations and what we cannot conclude from these sources: the documents above report large removal counts tied to Secure Communities and describe the stated goals of PEP, but they do not provide a single, consistent statistical time series that isolates how many removals decreased or increased solely because Secure Communities was ended and PEP began (not found in current reporting). Where sources disagree, I have noted both the enforcement‑effectiveness claims from ICE and conservative commentators and the targeting/overreach critiques from advocacy and oversight accounts [2] [5] [1].