Trump Who Made Immigration A Key Plank Of His 2016 Campaign Is Struggling To Crank Up Deportations
President Trump made his tougher stance on immigration a key plank of his 2016 presidential campaign.
WASHINGTONAfter months of national debate over President Trumps immigration policies, the record of his predecessor is playing a starring role in the race for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.
The spotlight has fallen on President Barack Obamas record on immigrant removals, which included the deportation of nearly three million foreigners during his eight years in the White House, after a debate this week in which the foes of former Vice President Joe Biden challenged him forcefully on the topic.
Watchdog: Trump Admin Didn’t Give Parents Option To Be Deported With Children
A new report from a Department of Homeland Security watchdog found the Trump administration failed to give some parents the option of reuniting with their children before deporting them under its family separation policy.
A report from DHSs Office of the Inspector General found the Trump administration separated families even in instances when parents facing deportation wished to return to their home country with their children.
ICE removed at least 348 parents separated from their children without documenting that those parents wanted to leave their children in the United States, OIG wrote in its report, referring to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
In fact, ICE removed some parents without their children despite having evidence the parents wanted to bring their children back to their home country.”
The Trump administration officially kicked off its “zero tolerance” policy in 2018, but the the OIG report found the more than 300 separations predated the family separation policy and were a result of increasing criminal prosecutions in July 2017 where individual ICE officers carried significant discretion over separations.
Even when ICE documented a parents choice to leave the child behind, some of the available records are significantly flawed, suggesting that not all parents who purportedly waived reunification did so knowingly and voluntarily, the OIG concluded.
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Nations Oldest & Largest Latino Civil Rights Organization Responds To The Latest Human Rights Watch Report Showing That More Than 200 People Deported From The Us Have Been Harmed Or Killed Upon Returning To El Salvador
Washington, DC – The League of United Latin American responded to the Human Rights Watch report released today showing that more than 200 people deported from the United States have been harmed or killed upon returning to the dangerous conditions which they fled. In the 117-page report titled, Deported to Danger: United States Deportation Policies Expose Salvadorans to Death and Abuse, HRW identifies the cases of 138 Salvadorans who were killed after deportation from the US. In addition to those killed, more than 70 others were beaten, sexually assaulted, extorted, or tortured.
LULAC National President Domingo Garcia and LULAC CEO Sindy Benavides released the following statements in response to the findings in this report:
The blood of at least 150 innocent people is on President Trumps hands for shutting Americas doors and sending back refugees who died because they were turned away based on a brutal immigration policy, said Domingo Garcia, LULAC National President. Donald Trump and all of his enablers need to look in the mirror and realize that they are responsible for the beating, torture, extortion, sexual assault and death of hundreds of people who were sent back to the places they left out of fear for their lives. This will be a stain on Americas history, much like when the U.S. refused to accept Jewish refugees traveling on the M.S. St. Louis during WWII and they were sent back to Europe to die in Nazi concentration camps.
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Deportations Lower Under Trump Administration Than Obama: Report
The Trump administration has deported fewer overall people than were deported under former President ObamaBarack Hussein ObamaBiden taps Powell, Brainard to lead Fed with ‘sound judgement and proven courage’The Hill’s 12:30 Report: Biden renominates Powell as Fed chairBiden renominates Powell as Fed chair, nominates Brainard as vice chairMORE despite the ongoing crackdown on immigrants without legal status, according to the Washington Post.
While the Obama administration deported 1.18 million people in his first three years, the number of deportations has been a little under 800,000 so far under Trump, according to the Post.
The Obama administration also deported 409,849 people in 2012 alone, while the Trump administration has yet to deport more than 260,000 people in a year, the Post reported.
The Post noted it was unclear why there have been fewer deportations under Trump.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement attributed the lower numbers to an increased deterrent effect from ICEs stronger interior enforcement efforts, but administration officials have also noted an increased proportion of immigrants from Central America, who are harder legally to deport, compared to that faced by the Obama administration.
The agency has also increased the length of time it detains people, holding non-criminals an average of 60 days in detention, 11 days longer than convicted criminals, and nearly doubling the average in 2009, according to the Post.
Woman Who Trespassed At Trumps Mar
- Yujing Zhang gained entry to Florida club in March 2019
- Covid delays led to long immigration detention
A Chinese businesswoman convicted of trespassing at Donald Trumps Mar-a-Lago club and lying to Secret Service agents has been deported, federal authorities said, more than two years after serving her sentence.
Yujing Zhang was turned over to immigration officials in December 2019 after serving an eight-month sentence for trespassing at Trumps resort in March that year.
But she was held at the Glades County Detention Center for three times as long as her prison term mainly because of deportation delays during the Covid-19 pandemic, immigration authorities told the Miami Herald.
When she went to Trumps club, Zhang was reported to have been carrying two Chinese passports and a device containing computer malware.
In court in April 2019, prosecutors said items found in her hotel room included a signal detector used to pick up the presence of hidden cameras, nine USB drives, five sim cards and a cellphone, $8,000 in cash and several credit and debit cards.
At sentencing, the then 33-year-old said she went to Mar-a-Lago to meet the president and family and just make friends.
When an incredulous judge asked if she really thought she could meet the Trumps, Zhang laughed loudly and said she hoped to meet other people too.
Zhang then told US district judge Roy Altman that the president told reporters he had invited her to Mar-a-Lago. Altman said that was another lie.
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Joe Biden Does Not Want To Be Americas Next Deporter
ALTHOUGH DONALD TRUMP talked the fiercest nativist game about illegal immigration, it was Barack Obama who oversaw the removal of more undocumented immigrants from America during his presidency, earning him the nickname deporter-in-chief. During his first term, Mr Obama deported over 60% more people than Mr Trump . Now Joe Biden is breaking records in the opposite direction.
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In April the Immigration, Customs and Enforcement agency , completed just 2,962 removals, the lowest number on record. Since February ICE agents have averaged around 2,300 arrests per month, a fifth of the monthly average in 2019, before the epidemic began. The figures show how Mr Biden is trying to craft policies that treat immigrants living illegally in America more humanely than his predecessors, without giving his critics on the left and the right too much ammunition.
The other reason for the recent decline in deportations is philosophical. Mr Biden campaigned promising a pathway to citizenship for many of the 11m unauthorised immigrants already in America, who are seen as enmeshed in communities and productive members of society. To deport them before any solution is brokered in Congress feels heartless to the Biden administration, says Ms Cardinal Brown.
For more coverage of Joe Bidens presidency, visit our dedicated hub
Changing Priorities For Deportations
Deportations fall into two categories: returns and removals. People who are removed have received an order of deportation from a court. They are ineligible from returning to the United States for a period of years. People counted as returned have left back to Canada or Mexico, for instance after an administrative process and dont face legal penalties for having been in the country without authorization.
Here are four snapshot years worth of deportations under four administrations. The volume of deportations can depend heavily on the condition of the economy in the United States as well as the countries from which the migrants emigrate and the policies put in place by different administrations.
Each figure = 10,000 people
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What Changes Has The Administration Implemented
Undermining asylum: The Trump administration has repeatedly imposed new restrictions on asylum seekers, making it nearly impossible for many people to claim protection in the United States. These restrictions include preventing migrants from applying for asylum if they traveled through another country before reaching the U.S. if they didnt apply in the previous country. The administration has also exported its asylum provision obligations to ill-equipped countries like El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala.
In January 2019, the Trump administration began implementing its Remain in Mexico policy, which forces Central Americans seeking asylum to return to Mexicofor an indefinite amount of timewhile their claims are processed. Since the start of the pandemic, the U.S. government has postponed all immigration court hearings, effectively stranding asylum seekers in Mexico. To make matters worse, asylum seekers are still required to go to their port of entry on the day of their previously scheduled court date to receive a new notice to appearor face a deportation order for not showing up. Learn more.
Now the administration is exploiting the pandemic to impose a categorical ban on people seeking asylum, further endangering the lives of migrantsincluding children.
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.
Reference links
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They Were Deported By Trump Now Biden Wants To Bring Them Back
The Biden administration will review thousands of deportations, permitting some immigrants back into the U.S.
Jason Rochester talks to his wife, Cecilia González Carmona, who is in Mexico, over Facetime, from Roswell, Ga., in June 2021. | Photo by Lynsey Weatherspoon
06/29/2021 04:30 AM EDT
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Julia Preston is a contributing writer at The Marshall Project, a nonprofit news organization covering the U.S. criminal justice system. Sign up for The Marshall Projects newsletter, or follow them on or .
Jason Rochester tried everything he could to persuade the Trump administration to allow his wife Cecilia, who is Mexican, to come back to their home in the United States.
A truck driver from Georgia, Rochester wanted to fix his wifes undocumented immigration status and put her on track to become an American citizen, like him and their son Ashton, now 8. They even agreed that she would leave for Mexico voluntarily in 2018, expecting she would soon be permitted to re-enter the country with legal papers.
They were wrong. Even when Ashton went through a year of treatment for kidney cancer, Trump administration officials did not relent, finding no compelling reason to let his mother in. Rochester stopped pleading.
Now, based on encouraging moves by President Joe Biden in a handful of deportations, Rochester is preparing a new application to try again.
Left and right: Rochester works for UPS . His and González Carmona’s son Ashton had kidney cancer. | Lynsey Weatherspoon
Dreamer: Sad Day For The Gop If Trump Wins
Trumps deportation dragnet would likely start by wreaking havoc on the lives of millions of U.S. citizens. To find undocumented immigrants, immigration enforcement agents would have to whittle down who they question about their immigration status, and that would include interrogating U.S. citizens. Further, because so many undocumented immigrants are part of mixed immigration status families, Americans would be put in the untenable position of having to decide whether to stay in their country, separated from their loved ones facing deportation, or leave the U.S.
In Trumps America, where the newly inaugurated president would seek to make good on his campaign promise to deport 11 million people within 2 years, what would happen to core American values including family, hard work, community and fairness?
Would our citizens be coerced into becoming immigration informants? Would Americans rat on their neighbors, friends or relatives out of a misguided feeling of patriotism or, perhaps worse, vengeance and retribution? Would undocumented women, children and elderly be exposed to abuse by those who would take advantage of Trumps deportation machinery to extract control, money or other unspeakable forms of abuse under threat of being exposed to homeland security agents?
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Tomorrow night in Simi Valley would be a good time to start.
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Trump Has Deported Fewer Immigrants Than Obama Did Last Year
In an interview with 60 Minutes a week after winning the presidency, Donald Trump promised his supporters he would immediately deport up to 3 million people “that are criminal and have criminal records, gang members, drug dealers.”
But the numbers for his first fiscal year in office are in, and the president is well below his mark.
According to data obtained by NBC Chicago, Immigration and Customs Enforcement deported 226,119 people between October 1, 2016, and September 30.
That’s a 6 percent drop from President Barack Obama’s last year in office.
But it’s not for a lack of trying: ICE arrested 143,470 people in that same time period, a 25 percent spike from last fiscal year. A large chunk of that increase comes from the rise in “interior removals,” or deportations of people who were detained away from the border, which jumped from 65,000 to nearly 82,000 this year, a 25 percent increase.
Part of the reason why the Trump administration hasn’t been able to deport as many people as it would like is bureaucratic: According to the Washington Post, immigration courts are currently facing a backlog of 630,000 cases, three times as many as there were in 2009.
The data also shows a large drop in border apprehensions. As NBC said: “The Border Patrol made 310,531 arrests during the fiscal year, a decline of 25 percent from 415,816 a year earlier and the lowest level since 1971.”
