The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency deported more than a quarter of a million illegal aliens from the United States in Fiscal Year 2019, including roughly 5,500 gang members.

Between September 2018 and October 2019, ICE agents deported about 267,258 illegal aliens from the U.S. — a more than four percent increase compared to 2018 and a nearly 20 percent increase compared to 2017 deportation levels.

This year, about 85,958 of those illegal aliens were deported from the interior of the U.S., while the other more than 181,000 illegal aliens were deported after arriving at the southern border.

The overwhelming majority of illegal aliens deported from the U.S. interior, roughly 65,000, were convicted criminals, while another 13,500 illegal aliens had pending criminal charges against them. There are anywhere between 11 and 22 million illegal aliens living in the interior of the country at any given time, straining ICE’s resources.

Additionally, ICE deported 5,497 known or suspected gang members who were living in the U.S. in 2019. Nearly 60 known or suspected terrorists were also deported.

Among those gang members and terrorists deported this year are foreign nationals like 26-year-old Carlos Alfredo Luna-Guebara from El Salvador who was a wanted fugitive in his native country for aggravated homicide, conspiracy to commit homicide, and terrorist organization membership.

Luna-Guebara was a known member of the 18th Street Gang. The illegal alien successfully entered the U.S. through the southern border. Luna-Guebara was only deported after being arrested in Pennsylvania on local charges.

Likewise, ICE deported 45-year-old Houcine Ghoul from Tunisia after it was revealed that he had entered the U.S. on a tourist visa and fraudulently married an American citizen to obtain a green card after overstaying his visa.

Ghoul, who had been living in North Carolina, posted a photo online showing his support for the Islamic State. Ghoul was described online as an “Extremist, terrorist, tough, brain-washed, radical,” who loved “explosions, booby-trapping, beheading the enemy” and was a supporter of “establishing the religion with the sword.”

Deporting illegal aliens from the U.S. saves American taxpayers about $622 billion over the course of a lifetime. This indicates that deporting illegal aliens is six times less costly than what it costs American taxpayers to currently subsidize the millions of illegal aliens living in the U.S.

Compared to the annual $132 billion that illegal immigration costs taxpayers, deportations conducted in 2018 were more than 40 times less costly.

The latest Pew Research Center survey finds that despite calls from 2020 Democrats like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) to end all deportations, roughly 54 percent of all Americans say increasing deportations is very or somewhat important to enforcing national immigration law.

Today, about 17.5 percent of the American workforce is made up of foreign-born workers. About 7.8 million of these foreign-born workers are illegal aliens living in the U.S.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.