The Orlando Sentinel reported today that senior officials from the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (USICE) said that they are no longer using arrest quotas to identify and apprehend immigrants who have ignored deportation orders to leave the United States.

The USICE declined to state the specifics on how the quotas were previously implemented or which quotas were suspended. Officials did state however, that the suspension of quotas would not affect the USICE’s to identify and apprehend immigrants who ignore their deportation orders.

Agency records from the USICE’s fugitive operations program show that beginning in 2004, teams were assigned to arrest at least 125 immigration fugitives. In 2006, each team’s quota was increased to 1,000 fugitive arrests.

Immigration fugitives are defined as immigrants who have been ordered to leave the United States by an immigration judge, but have failed to comply.