Each year, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) undertakes immigration enforcement actions involving hundreds of thousands of foreign nationals. These actions include the apprehension or arrest, detention, return, and removal from the United States of foreign nationals who are removable under U.S. immigration law.

The Office of Immigration Statistics (OIS) Annual Report presents information on the enforcement action taken in 2011 and key findings in this report include:

• DHS made 642,000 apprehensions of foreign nationals; 76 percent were natives of Mexico.
• ICE detained approximately 429,000 foreign nationals, an all-time high.
• DHS returned 392,000 foreign nationals from the U.S.  The leading countries of origin of those removed were Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.  These four countries represent 91 percent of all apprehensions.
• ICE removed 188,000 known criminal aliens from the U.S., an all-time high.

The U.S. Border Patrol was responsible for 53 percent of all immigration apprehensions and 96 percent of Border Patrol apprehensions happened along the Southwest border.

To read the entire DHS report click here.