Pirate's Cove

Remember the talking points about deportations under Obama never being higher? The Nation just ran a story saying no president has ever deported more. NPR said they were a record. Well, when people said the figures, and talking points, are mule fritters, they are correct

(Boston Globe) New deportation cases brought by the Obama administration in the nation’s immigration courts have been declining steadily since 2009, and judges have increasingly ruled against deportations, leading to a 43 percent drop in the number of deportations through the courts in the last five years, according to Justice Department statistics released Wednesday.

The figures show that the administration opened 26 percent fewer deportation cases in the courts last year than in 2009. In 2013, immigration judges ordered deportations in 105,064 cases nationwide.

The statistics present a different picture of President Obama’s enforcement policies than the one painted by many immigrant advocates, who have assailed the president as the “deporter in chief” and accused him of rushing to reach a record of 2 million deportations. While Obama has deported more foreigners than any other president, the pace of deportations has recently declined.

A good chunk of those deportations come from illegals being caught at the border and sent back, with the LA Times (the “mule fritters” link above) noting that the measurement methods have been changed under Obama to consider those caught immediately as formal deportations, artificially increasing the statistics. Those under “catch and release” across the border back to Mexico were never counted in the official deportation numbers. Until Team Obama changed the methodology in order to look tough on immigration

The steepest drop in deportations filed in the courts came after 2011, when the administration began to apply more aggressively a policy of prosecutorial discretion that officials said would lead to fewer deportations of illegal immigrants who had no criminal record. In 2013, the Department of Homeland Security opened 187,678 deportation cases, nearly 50,000 fewer than in 2011.

At the same time, the share of cases in which judges decided against deportation and for allowing foreigners to remain in the United States has consistently increased, to about one-third last year from about one-fifth in 2009.

This can’t all be blamed on Team Obama failing to bring illegals to deportation hearings, as illegals are lawyering up, with much thanks to all the illegal alien supporter groups. Of course, they’re illegals. They should simply be kicked out. But, many judges have their political viewpoints, and many are following Obama’s/Dem policies to be “more humane” and let them remain in the country.

On the plus side, Obama has kept the border enforcement, strengthened under President Bush (sometimes with him being dragged kicking and screaming), mostly at the same strength. And Border Agents seem to know that if those they catch quickly are not deportated almost immediately, they’ll end up in deportation court and could end up being allowed to stay.

Let’s also not forget that some Republicans are not helping the situation, either, with their push for amnesty, er, a pathway to citizenship. When politicians of both parties tell us that the immigration system is broken, they’re lying, because it is the political class, which wants to play games with our border security and sovereignty, who are broken.

Crossed at Right Wing News.