Who's the Real "Deporter in Chief"?
Immigration activists repeated named Obama the “Deporter in Chief.” Were they right? Strictly speaking, yes: More human beings were deported under Obama than any other presidency in history. Substantively, however, the critics were very wrong. Key fact: U.S. immigration law – and U.S. immigration statistics – makes a big distinction between full-blown deportations (“Removals”) and “voluntarily” returning home under the threat of full-blown deportation (“Returns”).
The distinction is not entirely cosmetic. If you re-enter after Removal, you face a serious risk of federal jail time if you’re caught. If you re-enter after a mere Return, you generally don’t. But Return is still almost as bad as Removal, since both exile you from the country where you prefer to reside. Since I’ve previously suggested that we should count each Return as 85% of a Removal, I’ve constructed a “Deportation Index” equal to Removals + .85*Returns to capture the substance of U.S. immigration policy. Check out the numbers:
Year Removals Returns Deportation Index 1977 31,263 867,015 768,226 1978 29,277 975,515 858,465 1979 26,825 966,137 848,041 1980 18,013 719,211 629,342 1981 17,379 823,875 717,673 1982 15,216 812,572 705,902 1983 19,211 931,600 811,071 1984 18,696 909,833 792,054 1985 23,105 1,041,296 908,207 1986 24,592 1,586,320 1,372,964 1987 24,336 1,091,203 951,859 1988 25,829 911,790 800,851 1989 34,427 830,890 740,684 1990 30,039 1,022,533 899,192 1991 33,189 1,061,105 935,128 1992 43,671 1,105,829 983,626 1993 42,542 1,243,410 1,099,441 1994 45,674 1,029,107 920,415 1995 50,924 1,313,764 1,167,623 1996 69,680 1,573,428 1,407,094 1997 114,432 1,440,684 1,339,013 1998 174,813 1,570,127 1,509,421 1999 183,114 1,574,863 1,521,748 2000 188,467 1,675,876 1,612,962 2001 189,026 1,349,371 1,335,991 2002 165,168 1,012,116 1,025,467 2003 211,098 945,294 1,014,598 2004 240,665 1,166,576 1,232,255 2005 246,431 1,096,920 1,178,813 2006 280,974 1,043,381 1,167,848 2007 319,382 891,390 1,077,064 2008 359,795 811,263 1,049,369 2009 391,341 582,596 886,548 2010 381,738 474,195 784,804 2011 386,020 322,098 659,803 2012 416,324 230,360 612,130 2013 434,015 178,691 585,902 2014 407,075 163,245 545,833 2015 333,341 129,122 443,095
Notice: Despite the rise in Removals under Obama, Returns crashed. Obama’s Deportation Index therefore falls as soon as he takes office – and then declines further every single year! By 2015, Obama’s D.I. is half its 2009 value, and about one-third of its previous peak under Bush II.
Does this mean Democrats are the genuine friend of the immigrant? Not exactly. Here are the average D.I.s for every president from Carter to Obama. The last column adjusts for population in millions, which, as you can see, makes the pattern even more extreme.
President Average D.I. Average D.I./Pop/10^6 Carter 776,019 3,471 Reagan 882,572 3,718 Bush I 889,657 3,534 Clinton 1,322,215 4,861 Bush II 1,135,175 3,861 Obama 645,445 2,068
Yes, while Obama has the lowest D.I. of any president over the last four decades, the real Deporter in Chief was none other than fellow Democrat Bill Clinton. Adjusting for population, no one else even comes close. Indeed, while I’m very confident that Trump’s D.I. will exceed Obama’s, it’s far from clear that Trump will manage to displace Clinton from the top spot. (Betting odds: I’ll give 4:1 that Trump’s average D.I. when he leaves office will exceed Obama’s, but only even money than he’ll exceed Clinton’s).
The lesson, as usual, is that we should look past surface rhetoric to the bedrock of numbers. While both Democrats and Republicans casually equate Clinton and Obama, their immigration policies were as different as day and night.
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