THE BIG DEPORTATION LIE

During the past several months, Homeland Security officials and other Administration spokespersons have repeatedly claimed the border and interior U.S. to be very secure as evidenced by the record number of “deportations” carried out. To this day the Administration continues to claim that the annual number of “deportations” are higher than ever before and the media continues to parrot the same. Were it actually so, it would provide an accelerator to the Administration’s efforts for Immigration Reform.

However, it now seems clear that the current Administration has been cooking the  books by redefining what they now count as “Deportations” vs previous definitions, resulting in grossly inflated and invalidated year to year comparisons.

Interesting to note that, while the Obama Administration has continuously claimed that it's deporting a record number of illegal aliens, the President, in a 2011 meeting with Hispanic reporters, confessed that -

“The (removal) statistics are actually a little deceptive because what we’ve been doing is, with the stronger border enforcement, we’ve been apprehending folks at the borders and sending them back. That is counted as a deportation, even though they may have only been held for a day or 48 hours, sent back – that’s counted as a deportation.”

In fact, actual "Deportations" are embarrassing lower and the President and the media continue to repeat the Big Lie!

So, how is this being accomplished, one might ask. Basically, in the past, removal numbers included only ICE Enforcement and Removal Office (ERO), statistics of people in the US who were actually removed under orders of removal.(Actions that provide for a legal bar to readmission) It did not include Border Patrol and CBP statistics of persons who were refused admission or those caught and turned around by the Border Patrol. However, starting in 2011, these numbers were added to the ERO removal numbers which had been traditionally reported, thereby, inflating the annual removal/deportation numbers. This was apparently done to give the public the impression that interior enforcement had increased to ease the way in for Immigration Reform. In fact, when accurately comparing “apples to apples”, it looks like total deportations have been steadily decreasing since 2000, as illustrated in the following graphic  -

Read more about this deception here: 

https://www.numbersusa.com/content/news/february-12-2013/how-obama-administration-inflates-deportation-statistics.html

http://cis.org/ICE-Illegal-Immigrant-Deportations

Ben Ferro

benferro@insideins.com