Assisting with a record flood of people crossing the U.S. southern border strained Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) resources as the number of deportations conducted by the agency lagged again in fiscal year 2022.

ICE deployed more than a thousand of its agents to the southern border throughout the year to supplement Customs and Border Patrol with arresting migrants attempting to enter the U.S. illegally and, in many cases, expelling the migrants immediately from the country under the Title 42 pandemic order, ICE officials told Axios. ICE also sent roughly 300 agents to work on agency priorities internationally.

“ICE continues to disrupt transnational criminal organizations, remove threats to national security and public safety, uphold the integrity of U.S. immigration laws, and collaborate with its colleagues across government and law enforcement in pursuit of our shared mission to keep U.S. communities safe,” ICE Acting Director Tae Johnson said in a Friday statement. The agency released its end-of-the-year report on Friday.

“ICE’s annual report highlights the efforts of our more than 20,000 law enforcement and support personnel in responding to complex cross-border and domestic threats. We will continue to safeguard national security and public safety while living our core values: integrity, courage, and excellence,” Johnson said.

The deployments took ICE officers away from the agency’s main mission: enforcing U.S. immigration laws in the interior of the country. In end-of-the-year data released Friday, the agency reported arresting roughly double the number of illegal aliens in 2022 from 2021. Deportations also increased, but remained at historical lows.

ICE made about 143,000 arrests in fiscal year 2022, an increase from fiscal year 2021’s roughly 74,000 arrests. Much of the 2022 arrests took place at the U.S. border and involved migrants who had just entered the country.

Deportations conducted by the agency also rose from about 59,000 in 2021 to roughly 72,000 in 2022. Both years lagged far behind the number of deportations executed in fiscal year 2020 when nearly 186,000 illegal aliens were removed from the U.S.

ICE is tracking roughly 4.8 million migrant cases that are being processed in immigration courts, nearly a third more than last year. About 1.2 million aliens have been ordered to leave the country by an immigration court.

The immigration enforcement agency tracks many aliens through “Alternative to Detention” (ATD) programs. ATD was created nearly two decades ago with the goal of removing some aliens from crowded detention facilities, but continuing to monitor them through electronic surveillance or mandatory check-ins with case agents. ICE reported that roughly 321,000 aliens are currently enrolled in such programs.

The agency recently said it had “no records” of aliens enrolled in the program since October 2018. ICE responded to an open records request from Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) on ATD enrollees with a letter saying that a search for records turned up nothing.

“ICE has conducted a search of the ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) for records responsive to your request and no records responsive to your request were found,” the agency told TRAC.

TRAC assistant Professor Austin Kocher vented frustration with the agency’s response in a post on social media: “Just days after announcing that the agency had been misleading to the public for months about how many immigrants were on gps ankle monitors, @icegov claims it can’t find records on over 350,000 immigrants in alternatives to detention program.”

An attorney for Gabby Petito’s family suggested that the mother of alleged killer Brian Laundrie knew that her son killed Petito and offered him assistance in disposing of her body.

Pat Reilly, the attorney for the Petito family, wrote a letter to Matt Luka, the attorney for the Laundrie family, earlier this month informing him of materials he was seeking from the Laundrie family in a civil lawsuit.

The letter, which just became public record, references a letter that Reilly sought to obtain several months ago that Roberta Laundrie allegedly wrote to her son, Fox News reported. The letter was reportedly titled, “burn after reading.”

“This request certainly would also include the note that Roberta Laundrie wrote to Brian Laundrie, [in] which she offered to bring a shovel to help bury the body,” Reilly wrote. “The note was released to the custody of Mr. Bertolino on Friday, June 24, 2022 by the FBI.”

Reilly told Fox News that he was not comfortable describing what was in the letter and that the content was “very specific.” He said that he believes the letter proves that Roberta Laundrie “knew of Gabby’s murder before Gabby’s body was located.”

Steve Bertolino, the Laundries’ longtime family attorney, told Fox News that the allegations were “not based on fact but on conjecture only,” claiming that the letter was written prior to when the murder happened.

Petitio’s parents have filed a lawsuit against Bertolino claiming he knew their daughter was dead when he publicly stated that the Laundrie family hoped “that the search for Miss Petito is successful and that Miss Petito is reunited with her family.”

On July 2, 2021, Gabby Petito left New York with her fiancé, Brian Laundrie. They took a road trip to Colorado and Utah. On August 12, a park ranger from Utah’s Arches National Park warned Gabby Petito that her relationship with Brian Laundrie appeared “toxic” and urged her to “find another path.”

The last time Petito was seen alive was on August 27, 2021, at a Jackson Hole, Wyoming, restaurant. On August 30, a text was sent from her phone: “No service in Yosemite.” On September 19, human remains matching her description were found at Spread Creek campground. The FBI confirmed that the body was hers and they ruled the cause of death to be a homicide.

But prior to the discovery of Gabby Petito’s body, on September 14, 2021, Bertolino released a statement in which he said:

This is understandably an extremely difficult time for both the Petito family and the Laundrie family. It is our understanding that a search has been organized for Miss Petito in or near Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming. On behalf of the Laundrie family it is our hope that the search for Miss Petito is successful and that Miss Petito is re-united with her family. On the advice of counsel the Laundrie family is remaining in the background at this juncture and will have no further comment.

The new lawsuit claims of Laundrie’s parents, “When they did choose to speak, it was through statements issued by Steven Bertolino. It is believed that at the time the September 14, 2021 statement was issued, the Laundries and Steven Bertolino knew that Gabby Petito was deceased, and that under those circumstances, the statement was insensitive, cold-hearted and outrageous.”

Hank Berrien contributed to this report.