President Barack Obama’s administration touted the figures as evidence of its progress in stopping illegal immigration, a record that could help the president win back independent voters who abandoned Democrats in the 2010 midterm elections, The Hill reported.

Of the 396,906 people removed from the United States, more than half – 216,698 – had been previously convicted of felonies or misdemeanors, according to the ICE numbers, which represents a 90 percent increase in the number of criminals deported compared with fiscal 2008 and a 10 percent increase compared with fiscal 2010.

ICE Director John Morton attributed the jump in deportations to the agency’s newly revamped discretionary policy.

“Smart and effective immigration enforcement relies on setting priorities for removal and executing on those priorities,” Morton said in a statement.

“These year-end totals indicate that we are making progress, with more convicted criminals, recent border crossers, egregious immigration law violators and immigration fugitives being removed from the country than ever before,” he said.

Republicans have blasted the White House’s new enforcement policies, saying they are a backdoor path to citizenship and a cloaked version of amnesty.

“The Obama administration is cooking the books to make it look like they are enforcing immigration laws, when in reality they are enacting amnesty through inaction,” said House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) on Tuesday.