Trump Still Isn’t Deporting As Many Immigrants As Obama Did
- The Trump administration still isn’t deporting as many immigrants annually as former President Barack Obama did in the early years of his presidency, Axios reported.
- Just 282,242 immigrants have been deported so far in the fiscal year 2019, whereas the Obama administration made 409,849 deportations in the fiscal year 2012.
- A key factor in Trump’s relatively slow rate of deportations is the limited resources of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, particularly as the influx of migrants at the southern border consumes the administration’s time and energy.
The Trump administration is still lagging behind the early years of the Obama administration in terms of deportation levels, according to internal Homeland Security figures obtained by Axios.
Though President Donald Trump has sought to ramp up deportations, only 282,242 immigrants have been deported so far in the fiscal year 2019.
In comparison, the Obama administration deported 409,849 immigrants in the fiscal year 2012, though the numbers dropped by nearly half that number by the last years of Obama’s second term in office.
A key factor in Trump’s relatively slow rate of deportations is the limited resources of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.
Trump on Saturday unexpectedly halted his administration’s plans to round up thousands of migrant families in 10 cities this weekend, saying he would prolong the raids by two weeks to allow Congress time to reform US asylum laws.
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Barack Obama Deported More People In His First Term Than Trump
United States
More people were deported and interior removals were higher under Obama, but more people were apprehended at the border under Trump.
According to the Washington Post, the Obama administration deported 1.18 million people in his first three years. The number of deportations has been a little under 800,000 until 2019 under Trump. The Post further noted that the Obama administration deported 409,849 people in 2012 alone, while the Trump administration has yet to deport more than 260,000 people in a year. In 2012, immigrant advocates had dubbed Obama as the ‘deporter in chief.’
According to the pew research center, the number of migrant apprehensions at the U.S.-Mexico border rose in fiscal 2019 to its highest annual level in 12 years. The increase in apprehensions has come as a growing number of migrants seek asylum.
Both Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement carry out removals or deportations. In fiscal 2018, CBP and ICE together carried out 337,287 removals of unauthorized immigrants, a 17% increase from the previous year. But removals remained below the levels recorded during much of the Obama administration, including three years between fiscal 2012 and 2014 when there were more than 400,000 per year.
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Donald Trump Moves On Promise To Deport Immigrants With Criminal Records
In his campaign for the White House and throughout his presidency, Donald Trump spotlighted cases of Americans killed by immigrants in the country illegally and pledged to deport “all criminal aliens” to make America safer.
Days after the November 2016 election, Trump told CBS’ Lesley Stahl that immigrants here illegally with criminal records, gang members and drug dealers would be incarcerated or deported. “We have a lot of these people, probably 2 million, it could be even 3 million,” Trump said.
Trump was referring to a Department of Homeland Securityreport for fiscal years 2011-13 that estimated there were 1.9 million “removable criminal aliens” in the United States at the time. The 1.9 million included immigrants legally and illegally in the country.
The Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank, estimated in July 2015 that 820,000 of the 1.9 million noncitizens convicted of crimes were in the country illegally. But the exact number is difficult to determine. Studies also have found that immigrants here illegally are less likely to commit crimes than people born in the United States.
A fiscal year 2019 performance report from the Department of Homeland Security details how many immigrants in the country illegally with criminal convictions were returned or removed from the United States by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. It amounted to about 423,000 people from fiscal years 2017 to 2019 , according to the report.
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What To Watch For
President-elect Joe Biden is promising to roll back many of Trumps immigration policies when he takes office, though some changes could take months. Biden plans to freeze deportations for 100 days while staffers rewrite guidelines for arrests and removals, but its unclear when or if hell stop CBP from rapidly expelling border-crossers.
The Trump Administrations Immigration Jails Are Packed But Deportations Are Lower Than In Obama Era
It has been nearly 700 days since Bakhodir Madjitov was taken to prison in the United States. He has never been charged with a crime.
Madjitov, a 38-year-old Uzbek national and father of three U.S. citizens, received a final deportation order after his applications to legally immigrate failed. He is one of the approximately 50,000 people jailed on any given day in the past year under the authority of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the most foreigners held in immigration detention in U.S. history.
The majority of those detainees, like Madjitov, are people with no prior criminal records.
According to the latest snapshot of ICEs prisoner population, from early November, nearly 70 percent of the inmates had no prior criminal conviction. More than 14,000 are people the U.S. government has determined have a reasonable fear of persecution or torture if deported.
Though President Trump has made cracking down on immigration a centerpiece of his first term, his administration lags far behind President Barack Obamas pace of deportations. Obama who immigrant advocates at one point called the deporter in chief removed 409,849 people in 2012 alone. Trump, who has vowed to deport millions of immigrants, has yet to surpass 260,000 deportations in a single year.
And while Obama deported 1.18million people during his first three years in office, Trump has deported fewer than 800,000.
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Executive Order On Interior Enforcement
The second immigration-related executive order, entitled, Enhancing Public Safety in the Interior of the United States, focuses on such issues as sanctuary cities and local-federal immigration enforcement cooperation, enforcement priorities, the reinstatement of the Secure Communities program and Section 287 agreements, and an increase in the number of ICE agents.
Sanctuary Cities and Local-Federal Immigration Enforcement
Section 9 forbids sanctuary jurisdictions from receiving federal grants, except those that are necessary for enforcement purposes. It directs DHS to designate jurisdictions as sanctuary jurisdictions, although there is no definition of what constitutes a sanctuary. Section 8 directs DHS to enter into Section 287 agreements, which permit state and local law enforcement to act as immigration agents and to apprehend and detain immigrants. Section 10 terminates the Priority Enforcement Program , instituted by the Obama Administration, and re-institutes the Secure Communities program, which would require local jurisdictions to issue detainers on unauthorized immigrants in their custody.
Enforcement Priorities
Increase in ICE Agents
Section 7 authorizes an increase of 10,000 additional ICE agents.
Response: Such an increase would triple the number of ICE agents at a cost of $3.9 billion, likely in anticipation of the launching of more aggressive enforcement activity throughout the country, including raids, which spread fear in immigrant communities.
Executive Order On Refugees
On January 27, President Trump signed an executive order entitled, Protecting the Nation from Terrorist Attacks by Foreign Nationals. The order suspends the issuance of visas to nationals from Iran, Iraq, Sudan, Syria, Libya, Somalia, and Yemen shuts down the US refugee program for 120 days reduces the number of refugees to be admitted to the United States in FY 2017 from 110,000 to 50,000 halts the resettlement of Syrian refugees indefinitely launches a screening mechanism for the entry of foreign nationals and requires DHS to expedite completion of an entry-exit tracking system.
Suspension of Visas to Certain Countries and Extreme Vetting
Section 3 of the executive order suspends the issuance of visas to countries designated as being detrimental to the interests of the United States for 90 days, listing Iran, Iraq, Sudan, Syria, Libya, Somalia, and Yemen. Section 4 requires implementation of uniform screening standards for all immigration programs, to include assessments such as whether an individual is a risk, will be a positive contributor to the nation, and has the ability to make contributions in the national interest.
Suspension of the US Refugee Program and the Ban on Syrian Refugees
The following are important CMS analyses and resources on these issues, which offer an important, evidence-based counter-narrative to the policies set forth in these executive orders.
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More Criminals In The Country Illegally Are Deported
President Donald Trump’s administration has deported thousands of immigrants with criminal convictions, moving forward on what Trump said he would do if elected to the White House.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the agency in charge of implementing immigration laws within the United States, said that in fiscal year 2018 it deported more than 145,000 immigrants with criminal convictions. Overall that year, it removed about 256,000 people.
The agency’s report did not offer a breakdown of the type of crimes committed by the immigrants deported.
ICE news releases shows that among the deported during Trump’s time in office include immigrants with criminal convictions for weapons trafficking, financial crimes, and felony involuntary manslaughter.
The number of convicted criminals deported in 2018 was slightly higher than the 128,000 deported in fiscal year 2017, which included about four months of the Obama administration.
ICE also reported close to 5,900 removals of known or suspected gang members in 2018 and about 5,400 in 2017.
At the same time, ICE said it removed 45 known or suspected terrorists in 2017 and 42 in 2018. There could be some overlap with the known or suspected gang members data, ICE said.
Trump is making progress on his pledge to deport immigrants who commit crimes. We rate this In the Works.
Donald Trump Exaggerates On Number Of Ms
In a ceremony honoring law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty, President Donald Trump underlined the threat of MS-13 gang members and his administrations efforts to deport them.
“Recently, MS-13 gang members called for the assassination of New York City police officers so the gang could quote, take back the streets. They got it wrong. We are the ones who are taking back the streets. We are getting them out of our country by the thousands,” Trump said May 15. “Every week we’re setting new records on we have a catch and release program, too. Its called we catch them and we release them in the country they came back from, we are getting them out. Or we are putting them in prison.”
There are an estimated 10,000 MS-13 gang members in the United States. Not all are immigrants. Some areU.S. citizens who cant be deported.
Still, we wondered about Trumps claim that MS-13 gang members are being deported “by the thousands.”
We found that thousands of gang members have been deported under Trumps administration. However, its unclear how many of them were MS-13 gang members, because U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement does not track removals by specific gang affiliation. An expert who researches gangs and criminal justice said there is a lengthy process between a gang members arrest and deportation.
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Bourke said 5,396 gang members were removed in fiscal year 2017 .
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Deportation And Removal From The United States
Deportation and removal from the United States occurs when the U.S. government orders a person to leave the country. In fiscal year 2014, Immigration and Customs Enforcement conducted 315,943 removals. Criteria for deportations are set out in 8 U.S.C. § 1227.
In the 105 years between 1892 and 1997, the United States deported 2.1 million people. Between 1993 and 2001, during the Presidency of Bill Clinton, about 1,870,000 people were deported. Between 2001 and 2008, during the Presidency of George W. Bush, about 2.0 million people were deported, while between 2009 and 2016, during the Presidency of Barack Obama, about 3.2 million people were deported.
Ice Releases Data On Immigrants Arrested So Far In Trumps Presidency
An immigration enforcement agency says it has arrested more than 41,000 immigrants known or suspected of being in the country illegally â and close to 75 percent of them were convicted criminals.
Per U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement, of those arrested between Jan. 22 and April 29:
⢠30,473 were convicted criminal aliens, up from 25,786 in the same period in 2016
⢠More than 2,700 convictions were for violent crimes, such as homicide, rape, kidnapping
⢠Among the arrested were one of ICE’s “Most Wanted Fugitives” and MS-13 gang members
“ICE agents and officers have been given clear direction to focus on threats to public safety and national security, which has resulted in a substantial increase in the arrest of convicted criminal aliens,” said ICE acting director Thomas Homan. “However, when we encounter others who are in the country unlawfully, we will execute our sworn duty and enforce the law.
Arrests of non-criminals also increased about 157 percent during this period: from about 4,200 in 2016 to more than 10,800 in 2017.
The data shows the Trump administration is moving forward with its plan to remove criminal undocumented immigrants.
We continue to rate this promise In the Works.
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Haiti Deportations Soar As Biden Administration Deploys Trump
There have been more Title 42 expulsions in the space of a few weeks than during an entire year of Trumps administration, report says
The Biden administration has so far deported more Haitians in a few weeks than the Trump administration did in a whole year, with the use of a highly controversial Trump-era public health order denying asylum seekers basic legal rights, according to a new report.
The report, The Invisible Wall, published on Thursday by a coalition of immigrant rights groups, focuses on Title 42, part of the 1944 Public Health Service Act invoked a year ago by the Trump administration as grounds for summary expulsion of migrants because of the supposed health risk they posed during the Covid pandemic.
The Biden team has sought to place a moratorium on deportations of immigrants already in the country , but it has not stopped Title 42 expulsions of newly arrived migrants. The report found the pace of deportation flights to Haiti in particular had increased dramatically.
More Haitians have been removed to Haiti in the weeks since President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris took office than during all of fiscal year 2020, according to the Invisible Wall report, published by the Haitian Bridge Alliance, the Quixote Center, and the UndocuBlack Network.
he partial opening of the border has caused confusion and misinformation in Haitian communities stuck in Mexico under the Title 42 policy, the report said.
