Obama the evil guy started it.
Data Dive
Tracking Obama’s deportation numbers
By
Mike Corones
February 25, 2015
Barack Obama has called himself the “champion in chief” of immigration law reform. Latino activists, angry at his administration’s removal of illegal immigrants, have responded by calling him the
deporter in chief. What do the data tell us?
“America is
expelling illegal immigrants at nine times the rate of 20 years ago; nearly 2m so far under Barack Obama, easily outpacing any previous president,” the Economist wrote in February 2014. “Border patrol agents no longer just patrol the border; they scour the country for illegals to eject. The deportation machine costs more than all other areas of federal criminal law-enforcement combined.”
Critics may declare President Obama soft on immigration, but
as this Reuters graphic shows, according to
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) data the Department of Homeland Security deported 414,481 people in fiscal year 2014, down from
438,421 the year before. Each year of the Obama administration has seen more deportations than any preceding president; the pre-Obama high of 358,886 removals in
FY2008 came during President George W. Bush’s last full fiscal year in office.