The deportation figures cited in the meme below are roughly in line with the historical data, though they require context to understand exactly what they mean by deportations. The numbers I cite in this article reflect a combination of “removals” and “returns.” Removals are formal deportations, often involving court orders or expedited processes, with legal consequences like bans on re-entry. Returns are less formal, typically involving migrants apprehended at the border who are returned without a removal order. The injunction statistics a more problematic.
Bill Clinton (1993–2001) carried out approximately 12.3 million deportations. Of these, 11.4 million (93 percent) were returned primarily at the border, involving migrants apprehended and deported without formal removal proceedings. Additionally, Clinton carried out about 870,000 formal removals. George W. Bush (2001–2009) carried out approximately 10.3 million deportations, with about 8.3 million (81 percent) being returns and roughly 2 million formal removals. Barack Obama (2009–2017) carried out approximately 5.3 million deportations. Obama focused more on formal removals (around 3.2 million) than returns. Obama was so aggressive with formal removals that he was nicknamed “Deporter-in-Chief.” Obama’s policies shifted toward prioritizing criminal aliens. Trump strategy builds on Obama’s strategy.
The claim that Clinton, Bush, and Obama faced zero injunctions is inaccurate. Universal injunctions (court orders blocking federal policies) have been a feature of immigration policy disputes across the four administrations under discussion (they were rarely used before then). However, the gist of the meme—that Trump has faced more injunctions than his predecessors—is true. Indeed, the difference is stark.
Clinton and Obama each faced around a dozen injunctions over their two terms. Bush faced around half a dozen. In contrast, Trump faced some 64 injunctions in his first term alone—with his first term seeing fewer deportations (about 1.5 million) than his predecessors in a four-year span. It would have been more, of course, if not for the barrage of injunctions leveled at Trump’s efforts to carry forward the policies of his predecessors. So far, in his second term, Trump has deported around a 50,000 illegal aliens. And the injunctions are flying. Who knows what the final count will be.
So, while the meme isn’t entirely accurate, it is substantially true, and its implications important to consider. We might ask whether, if Biden were still president and embarked on a similar path, he would face such a massive wave of injunctions. We do know this wasn’t an issue in his only term as president because he essentially ended the policy of mass deportation and instead effectively opened the border to millions of illegal aliens. We don’t really need to guess what a second Biden term would look like.
What explains the double standard? How could Trump’s predecessors deport so many millions with so few injunctions, while Trump is hampered by injunctions at every turn? Is the simply because it’s Trump doing the deporting and corporate elites need to portray his deportation policy as some extraordinary moment in US history to delegitimize his presidency? Or did Biden’s open border policy signal the desire of corporate elites to flood the country with cheap foreign labor going forward?
The double standard may be only apparent. Globalization was kicked into a higher gear under Biden and mass immigration became even more central to the plan to immobilize and demoralize whatever remains of the labor movement. As we can see with the protests across America, the left has been turned against the working class. Mass immigration is also central to the plan to establish a one-party state with the Democratic Party and compliant Republicans serving the interests of the transnational elite. Trump and the populist movement is the resistance the oligarchy needs to put down, so stopping Trump’s immigration policy by manufacturing the perception that it’s authoritarian kills two birds with one stone.
freedom and reason 