For both Democrats and Republicans, the recent deportation numbers may come as something of an unpleasant surprise. It turns out the President Barack Obama deported more illegal immigrants than Trump even after two years of Trump’s controversial immigration policies.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Deputy Director Ronald Vitello released the figures for the last year which included the detention of “a record number” of illegal immigrants as well as a rise in deportations of 13 percent since 2017. However, the figures show that the number of those deported under Obama in 2012 reached 409,849 as opposed to 235,413 in 2015 and 240,255 in 2016. In 2018, the figure reached 256,000.
Notably, some 145,262 of the 256,000 had prior criminal convictions and 22,796 had criminal charges pending against them. This also included some 5,872 who were known or suspected gang members and 42 suspected terrorists.