Posted on 05/25/2017 7:23:12 PM PDT by Lorianne
Both the corporate media and Donald Trump, himself, want you to believe that Trump is the “worst thing ever to happen to undocumented people.” There is no question that Trump aspires to be the Great Deporter, but “Barack Obama is damn near unbeatable when it comes to kicking people out of the country. Trump is not yet even a contender.”
“Obama’s rate of “removal” of unwanted immigrants was in the stratosphere for six of his eight years in office.”
If all you know is what you read in the newspapers and see and hear on the rest of corporate media, then you have been given the impression that, in less than 100 days, Barack Obama was dethroned as the champion deporter of unwanted immigrants in the history of the United States. Donald Trump, for his own, race-baiting reasons, would also like you to believe the misleading headlines. But it’s not true, and the actual numbers tell us that Obama will likely remain the all-time Deporter-in-Chief. Although arrests of immigrants during the first 90 days of this year increased significantly over the same period of 2016, Obama’s last year in office, they still amounted to only one-third or less of the immigrant arrests during the peak Obama years of 2011 and 2012.
Just as the New York Times methodically distorts and, objectively, falsifies its coverage of Syria and foreign affairs in general, in order to stoke the fires of war, the paper last Saturday deliberately constructed a misleading picture of Trump’s record of deportations during his first three months in office. At the top of the story, in the first paragraph, the Times tells us that immigration and customs agents arrested a little more than 41,000 people between January 22nd and April 29, compared to about 30,000 during the same period in 2016. That’s a jump from about 10,000 arrests per month in Obama’s last year, to almost 14,000 monthly detentions during Trump’s first year. But you have to read three-quarters of the article to learn that Barack Obama was arresting more than twice as many immigrants as Trump -- 29,000 a month -- back in 2011, and you’d have to do your own research to learn that Obama arrested and deported even more people than that in his peak year, 2012. At the rate that Donald Trump is going, he will have to become far more aggressive if he ever wants to even come close to Obama’s immigrant arrest and removal record.
“Barack Obama was arresting more than twice as many immigrants as Trump -- 29,000 a month -- back in 2011.”
If you are looking at my report on-line, check out the graph at the top of the page. Obama’s rate of “removal” of unwanted immigrants was in the stratosphere for six of his eight years in office, before he started thinking about cleaning up his historical “legacy” as a phony progressive and a friend of immigrants.
The New York Times gets away with its blatant distortions of facts, in this case, because Donald Trump wants folks to believe that he is worst thing ever to happen to undocumented people. Trump’s immigrant-hating constituents want to believe that Obama coddled people without papers. Trump’s operatives at Homeland Security bragged that the “statistics reflect President Trump’s commitment to enforce our immigration laws fairly and across the board.” But actually, the statistics show that Barack Obama is damn near unbeatable when it comes to kicking people out of the country, and Trump is not yet even a contender.
Obama and Trump, for their own reasons, are both deeply invested in the same lie. The people that are most disserved by that lie, are the immigrants, who are led to believe that the Democrats are their friends. Which shows that Black Agenda Report was right, back in 2012, when we described Barack Obama as the “more effective evil.” He is more effective in his evil-doing partly because he has media whores like the New York Times to whitewash his sins away.
Pure crap
Obama’s numbers counted people turned back at official border crossings as “deportations”!
Many of those illegals who actually were deported were back a couple of days later. And, many of those were deported and returned multiple times; thus raising the # of deportations.
Also ironic that they deplore Trump's actions to take out the worst criminals and hold Obama high for what they claim was record deportations - can't make this crap up and maintain a straight face or credibility....
“Barack Obama is damn near unbeatable when it comes to kicking people out of the country. Trump is not yet even a contender.” “
Based on his actions, I find that hard to believe. Remember the train loads coming in? Remember the amnesty? Remember the dispersion of Middle Easterners all around the country? Remember support for sanctuary cities?
I’m pretty sure this website is not applauding Obama for supposedly deporting so many people. They have been very critical of Obama in general.
I see differences in the reporting on this issue.
Snopes, with its liberal bias is protective of Obama, and quotes the LA times saying
The number of people deported at or near the [U.S.-Mexico] border has gone up — primarily as a result of changing who gets counted in the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency’s deportation statistics.
The vast majority of those border crossers would not have been treated as formal deportations under most previous administrations. If all removals were tallied, the total sent back to Mexico each year would have been far higher under those previous administrations than it is now.
Until recent years, most people caught illegally crossing the southern border were simply bused back into Mexico in what officials called “voluntary returns,” but which critics derisively termed “catch and release.” Those removals, which during the 1990s reached more 1 million a year, were not counted in Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s deportation statistics.
Now, the vast majority of border crossers who are apprehended get fingerprinted and formally deported. The change began during the George W. Bush administration and accelerated under Obama. The policy stemmed in part from a desire to ensure that people who had crossed into the country illegally would have formal charges on their records.
In the Obama years, all of the increase in deportations has involved people picked up within 100 miles of the border, most of whom [had] just recently crossed over. In 2013, almost two-thirds of deportations were in that category.
Snopes adds,
The deportation trend abated towards the latter part of the Obama administration, with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announcing efforts to “prioritize convicted criminals and threats to public safety, border security, and national security.” Although 2013 was a record-setting year with 435,498 deportations, 2015 saw the lowest numbers in a decade, according to ICE. - http://www.snopes.com/obama-deported-more-people/
Another source, ABC, reports,
Donald Trump’s immigration plan is set to be announced later this week. And if previous comments are any indication, the Republican presidential contender said he plans to focus on deporting criminals, similar to the current strategy of the Obama administration.
"On Day One, I am going to begin swiftly removing criminal illegal immigrants from this country," he said at Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst's Roast and Ride event Saturday in Des Moines, saying he would not focus on the 11 million undocumented residents who have lived in the U.S. for a long time without incident...
President Barack Obama has often been referred to by immigration groups as the "Deporter in Chief."
Between 2009 and 2015 his administration has removed more than 2.5 million people through immigration orders, which doesn’t include the number of people who "self-deported" or were turned away and/or returned to their home country at the border by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
In fact, they have deported more than the sum of all the presidents of the 20th century.
President George W. Bush's administration deported just over two million during his time in office; and Obama’s numbers don’t reflect his last year in office, for which data is not yet available.
Who is being deported?
President Obama directed U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to focus on criminals, not families, during his November 2014 executive action on immigration.
According to their website, "ICE has continued to increase its focus on identifying, arresting, and removing convicted criminals in prisons and jails, and also at-large arrests in the interior."
In fiscal year 2015, 91 percent of people removed from inside the U.S. were previously convicted of a crime.
The administration made the first priority "threats to national security, border security, and public safety." That includes gang members, convicted felons or charged with "aggravated felony" and anyone apprehended at the border trying to enter the country illegally.
In 2015, 81 percent, or 113,385, of the removals were the priority one removals.
Priority two includes "misdemeanants and new immigration violators."
That includes "aliens convicted of three or more misdemeanor offenses, other than minor traffic" violations, as well as those convicted of domestic violence, sexual abuse, burglary, DUIs or drug trafficking.
With the focus on criminals and not families, the administration has moved away from those living and working in the U.S. without a criminal history.
"Felons, not families. Criminals, not children. Gang members, not a mom who’s working hard to provide for her kids. We’ll prioritize, just like law enforcement does every day," Obama said in November 2014 when announcing his executive action on immigration. - http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/obamas-deportation-policy-numbers/story?id=41715661
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