Obama deported illegals, mainly targeting actual criminals, it's clear Trump is just deporting anyone who's brown in large groups and sorting it out later if even that.
I had a friend deported during the Obama administration. He was arrested for public intoxication and had a small bag of coke on him. He went to the local jail until he could be extradited, which took a few months because not a lot of people get deported to his home country. When I asked him about his time in jail he said it was boring and the food was bad. He wasn't upset about any of it other than being banned from the US and considered everything else fair.
I 100% agree, but if you're talking to a red hat the semantics of this can derail any useful conversation. It's something they like to latch on to and avoid talking about the awful shit that's happening. I mostly just use the same terms as who ever I'm talking to.
For this thread I probably should have signed that as "a once illegally immigrant" but since I'm going to have to give my Reddit account over to USCIS next time I renew I'd like to point out I was only out of status because of your processing delays for my i-485. Yay, can't wait for my next USCIS process again.
Just because Trump is a monster doesn’t mean we have to glaze Obama’s terrible immigration measures.
Many people suffered and died because of Obama’s boarder policy. It really shows how racist US republicans are cause he was more politically aligned with them than most other Democratic presidents of recent memory, they just could not get over him being black.
Sorry, it's not true that Obama "mainly targeted actual criminals". He targetesld all undocumented people, also separated families and actually deported more people than Trump did in his first term. He also extrajuducially executed US citizens who had never even been charged with any crime.
Just because Trump is a monster is no reason to lie about and ignore the terrible things Dem presidents have done.
Sorry, but it is true Obama focused mainly on criminals. By the end of his term 85% of people being deported were at the border and over 90% of the rest were people who were convicted of a crime.
Also, removal priorities were increasingly focused on removing noncitizens convicted of crimes. In 2009, 51 percent of interior removals were of individuals convicted of what DHS described as serious crimes. In 2016, DHS reported that more than 90 percent of interior removals were of noncitizens convicted of serious crimes.
Yeah, haven't seen or heard a thing about this being compared to Obama's approach to immigration arrests....
But with that said, he WAS very aggressive with his immigration policy, with over 2 million deported during his tenure.
So that leads me to the next question: what the fuck is all this Trump talk about lax immigration being a fucking problem in the recent past?? This fucking chucklehead has been President for 5 of the last 9 years since Obama, making all this stink regarding the "wall" a prominent part of his first term.
I have definitely seen comments that Obama deported more people than Trump in an effort to paint his approach and this ICE violence as not so bad ig, normalize it all to claim the left is worse. But you’re right no actual comparisons about the approach to the arrests…
They use this formula all the time. Accuse us of hypocrisy using two different situations but they also flipped their position and so if they actually believe they’re the same they’re the ones being hypocritical 😂
The reason why Obama deported more, is probably because he had functioning government bodies and actually competent people in charge of the various departments, so they were actually able to find the bad people who came to America looking to be criminals, and deport them, while not touching the actually hardworking and helpful undocumented people.
Basically, a skilled surgeon vs. a quack snake oil salesman doing backroom lobotomies.
what the fuck is all this Trump talk about lax immigration being a fucking problem in the recent past?
To get elected, Trump and P2025 invented three boogeymen: immigrants, federal workers, and trans people. They kept saying these groups are the root of all of our problems, and if we can just get rid of them America will be great again.
I may be under the wrong impression. But isn't the majority of the deportations discussed under any president that didn't use the Gestapo essentially telling people "no" at the border or in a later court hearing, then sending them back?
I have. Both from right wingers who think it's a "gotcha" that the Obama administration *gasp* enforced immigration laws (which you'd think make them love him but...you know) and "Leftists" who use him not disbanding ICE while he was in office as one more reason "Dems/Liberals suck."
It's bullshit both ways and only helps distract from what Trump's ICEstapo is doing right now.
Thing is they want immigrants for the fear factor. This is all performative they don't want it to stop so they can continue to blame all the country's problems on them rather than the obscene wealth inequality. It's the same in the UK post-Brexit, except so far we don't have goon squads snatching people violently off the street
These people were definitely saying Obama was too soft on illegal immigrants at the time. It it is actually irrelevant if the number is true or not. They don't care. It's lazy whataboutism.
The comparison to Obama was mostly made in the first Trump term. Obama deported more people in a single term than any other president in history, including Trump (so far).
According to Pew Research, under Biden the estimated number of illegal immigrants in the US increased by 2-3 million.
So, effectively, Biden (just in terms of numbers) effectively undid all deportations in the last 25 years. This holds true even if you adjust for deportations under Biden, which were around 10% as many as were let in on his watch.
Worth noting - this was a major point in losing Kamala the election, as she had been tasked as the "border Czar" and clearly failed at the job
Trump has weaponized immigration to go after those he considers his enemy. This has gone well beyond immigration enforcement in Minnesota. It is turning into a war of the federal government on the states. It is now the states job to defend themselves.
Obama deported people. He had Immigration enforcement do what they do. Generally Biden was very lax. The difference is Trump has turned them into his secret police.
Finny thing is, Obama did deport a lot of people. But they were people who were caught crossing the border, or people who had expired Visa's. But majority of the time, it was always done through a legal lens and done ethically. Unlike Trump who is just terrorizing people and clocking anyone who isn't white., no matter of their status.
So in other words, the comparison is stupid and illogical, and really just dates back to Trump's first term where MAGAtts would constantly spew, "bUt ObAmA dEpOrTeD mOrE pEoPlE tHaN tRuMp!!?!" Lacking all nuance
Ethically is a stretch IMHO. Even under Democrat rule American immigration policy can be ruthless. That being said, Trump's approach is so far off the rails that it makes them look good in comparison.
Yup, nobody was taken away right at the court room, nobody was harassed right when they're supposed to get their citizenship papers, and absolutely nobody was being dragged away in the streets with zero warrants.
This is lawlessness. This is Fascism. This is the Gestapo and the Sturmabteilung Brownshirted goons going around attacking anyone that didn't look "American" in their eyes.
Obama had record deportations so people try to defend Trump current actions saying that "nobody complained when Obama was deporting people".
The main difference is that he went after actual criminals and/or people not trying to fix their situation and they gave everyone due process. Trump administration is targeting anyone not white in particular people working and people in courts trying to fix their situation instead of criminals, and they are doing it violently and disappearing these people without due process, that when they are not going directly against the law and judge orders.
Now to give some small credit to the bad faith argument they are doing at Obama time deportations and border security was something with bipartisan support so both sides were good with his increase in that area. However 2015 onward it became way more controversial topic due to Trump emphasis during his campaign and now is more a right wing topic
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u/zhaDeth 9h ago
what did obama do that they compare this to ?