In the debate about which U.S. President has the record for deporting the most illegal aliens, it looks like former Pres. Obama still holds the title.
The UK Independent did an in-depth look into the question in late 2024, just after Trump was elected to a second term. The outlet produced this confusing graph.
For our purposes, the red bars at the bottom are what we would consider to be deportations: involuntary departures facilitated by a formal order. “Returns” come in a variety of flavors and include people leaving voluntarily (a good thing). The rest of the figures in the blue, light blue, and pink bars represent some form of immigrants being turned away at the border (also good, but not our focus here).
Focusing on the formal, involuntary sending back of unauthorized aliens, Obama deported more than 3 million over his eight years in office. In hindsight, the achievement seems beyond amazing, as we are now told that such wholesale movement of people is both logistically impossible and morally reprehensible.
How did he do it? Did every one of those 3 million receive their full allotment of “due process”? Did they use busses, airplanes? Why was this not prevented by every district judge in America?
It looks like Trump 2.0 is finally beginning to ramp up their immigration enforcement efforts. Reported by Fox News just today,
ICE breaks arrest record two days in a row under Trump’s new immigration directives.
The details,
Immigration and Customs Enforcement made a record-setting 2,368 arrests of illegal aliens in a single day on Wednesday, a senior ICE official told Fox News.
This broke the record from just one day prior, as there were 2,267 ICE arrests on Tuesday. The increase comes after an average of roughly 1,600 arrests last week, as the White House pursues a goal of 3,000 arrests daily.
The New York Post reports,
ICE facilities bursting at the seams with 53K illegal migrants in detention — with agency desperate for more funds
It’s a start. The current immigration court backlog sits above 3.6 million.
