Washington Post<\/a> reports that 1.18 million people were deported during the first three years of the Obama administration while the Trump administration removed fewer than 800,000 during the same period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cIt is unclear why deportations have been happening relatively\nslowly,\u201d the Post puzzled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Let\u2019s help clarify that for you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
First, the selected deportation numbers are a confused mix of\napples and oranges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The\nPost and other media outlets that declare Obama the \u201cDeporter-in-Chief\u201d persist\nin purveying bogus statistics that conflate actual removals<\/em> (by the immigration court or by U.S. Immigration and\nCustoms Enforcement) with Customs and Border Protection turnarounds<\/em> at or near the border.<\/p>\n\n\n\nDoing what no previous administration\nhad done, Obama combined deportations and turnarounds to make it appear<\/em> there were a record number of\nremovals. In fact, actual<\/em> deportation\nnumbers were around 200,000 to 300,000, consistent with most administrations.<\/p>\n\n\n\nWhen\nit took office, the Trump administration restored the standard practice of\nlisting removals and turnarounds as separate categories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Second,\nbecause\nunprecedented percentages of illegal border crossers are abusing the asylum\nsystem or using minors as get-out-of-jail-free cards, the Trump administration\ncannot engage in Team Obama\u2019s deceptive accounting practices, even if it wanted\nto.<\/p>\n\n\n\n