"During this time period … more than 91 percent of aliens removed from the interior of the United States had received criminal convictions or pending criminal charges", ICE executive associate director Nathalie Asher said in the release on Monday.
Preliminary statistics reveal that the two policing divisions together deported 62,968 illegal aliens from the US interior in the January-March period, according to the release.
In addition, deportations stemming from ICE and ERO apprehensions increased 10 percent from the same period in 2018, the release said.
US President Donald Trump has said that deportations of illegals will focus on criminal aliens, a security threat to the United States.
The latest statistics are separate from a purported migrant crisis on the southern US border in which over 100,000 illegals are claimed to have recently crossed and requested political asylum, many from Central America.
Southern border migrants are typically allowed to remain in the country pending the outcome of immigration court hearings on their asylum requests, which often take years. After extensively long wait times many applicants give up and do not show up for their day in court, according to the Trump administration.
Caravans of migrants from Central American countries seeking asylum began moving toward the United States through Mexico last fall. Trump has called the surge of arrivals a crisis and declared a national emergency in February as a means of securing funds for the construction of a border wall to stop illegal immigration.
