President Joe Biden’s so-called “sanctuary country” orders have ensured a significant drop in the number of illegal aliens arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in fiscal year 2021, newly released federal data shows.

From October 2020 to September 2021, ICE agents arrested just a little more than 74,000 illegal aliens — a nearly 50-percent reduction in arrests compared to fiscal year 2019, when more than 143,000 illegal aliens were arrested by ICE agents.

“From day one, this administration has pushed policies that have made it effectively impossible to detain or deport around 90 percent of the illegal aliens currently in the United States, while at the same time releasing tens of thousands of illegal aliens into the country in the past year,” former Acting ICE Director Thomas Homan said in a statement.

The orders, as Breitbart News has chronicled, prevent ICE agents from arresting and deporting most of the nation’s 11 to 22 million illegal aliens — including those accused of killing American citizens. In addition, Biden has given illegal aliens a number of “protected areas” where they can avoid arrest and deportation and is currently working to further crack down on ICE arrests.

Though Biden’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has claimed that their focus is arresting the most violent and dangerous illegal aliens, just 49 percent of all illegal aliens arrested in fiscal year 2021 had criminal convictions.

Compare that percentage to fiscal year 2019 when 64 percent of illegal aliens arrested by ICE agents were convicted criminals.

Former Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Commissioner Mark Morgan, a visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation alongside Homan, said Biden “has turned the United States into a sanctuary country, plain and simple.”

“This president has sent a message to the world that if you illegally cross our sovereign border, you will likely be released into the interior of the U.S., and once you’re here, immigration officials are not allowed to remove you, even if you skip your court date or commit a crime,” Morgan said.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.