Q&A of the Day – Comparing Trump’s Mass Deportation Plan to Past Presidents
Each day I feature a listener question sent by one of these methods.
Email: brianmudd@iheartmedia.com
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Today’s Entry: Submitted via talkback. The listener asked how President Trump’s deportation plan compared to President Obama’s.
Bottom Line: President Trump wasted no time on Monday getting down to business. During a signing ceremony the 45th & 47th president of the United States signed a record number of day one executive actions. High on the priority list was, of course, border security. That meant the repealing of President Biden’s executive orders on border policies and the restoration of his first term orders, a la the Remain in Mexico policy for asylum seekers. As Trump had also promised, there was an executive order authorizing what he has billed as the largest deportation operation in American history.
According to Trump’s 20 Point Plan to Save America his top priority is to: Seal THE BORDER AND STOP THE MIGRANT INVASION. His second highest priority is to Carry out the largest deportation operation in American history. On Sunday, during his Victory Rally he added: Very soon we'll begin the largest deportation operation in American history. Larger, even larger than President, Dwight Eisenhower, who has the record right now. So, in addressing today’s question, how many deportations did President Obama carry out? How about President Eisenhower as Trump referenced?
For this exercise I’ll exclude President Biden as his totals haven’t been finalized. Through the first Trump administration the top five presidents for deportations were:
- Barack Obama: 3.07 million
- George W. Bush: 2.01 million
- Donald Trump: 1.55 million
- Bill Clinton: 870 thousand
- Franklin D. Roosevelt: 171 thousand
Many are surprised to hear that Barack Obama was responsible for deporting the most people in American history. Also, as is evident, it’s not particularly close as more than a million additional deportations took place during Obama’s eight years compared to during his predecessor’s eight years. What this also illustrates is how the illegal immigration crisis has grown over the past few decades. It’s not a coincidence that the four most recent presidents account for the most deportations. It’s that there are simply many more illegal immigrants who’ve entered our country since the 1980’s. With that said, on an annualized basis, Trump’s deportation rate was the highest in history.
Annualized deportations by president:
- Trump 388 thousand
- Obama 383 thousand
- W. Bush 252 thousand
- Clinton 109 thousand
- H.W. Bush 35 thousand
As for Dwight Eisenhower, who was mentioned by Trump as holding the record, he accounted for a total of 110,019 deportations or only 13,752 per year. So, what then was Trump referencing? Dubbed “Operation Wetback”, a two-year campaign from 1953-1954 sought to root out Mexicans who’d unlawfully entered the United States. The campaign has been wildly misreported over time. For example, if you search for it, you’ll see some accounts suggesting that a total of 13 million Mexicans were forced out of the US during that time. That’s absurd for any number of reasons – especially given the much lower population totals of both countries 70 years ago. The actual number was fewer than 1.3 million. What’s believed to be a clerical error has resulted in false reporting to this today that may be responsible for Trump’s citing of Eisenhower as the most prolific deporter. But the reason Eisenhower isn’t one of the top deporters, is that the operation wasn’t a formal deportation program. Instead, officials entered communities and enforced what were classified as “voluntary departures”. Allowing the targeted Mexicans to leave of their own accord as opposed to being formally removed by authorities.
As for why President Trump doesn’t speak to President Obama’s prolific record on deportations... I can’t speak to it. As always there are two sides to stories and one side to facts. Those are the facts...