The Most Deportations Ever? Ctd

Dara Lind defends her claim, which came under fire last week, that “Obama is deporting more immigrants than any president in history”:

[T]he dispute here hinges on the fact that there’s no longer any official definition of “deportation.” The terminology has changed as policy has changed, and that’s creating some confusion today as to what should count as a deportation.

Why she is sticking to her guns:

The story of the Obama administration on immigration enforcement is that more people than ever are being expelled from the country in a way that prevents them from returning to the US legally or illegally — even though netunauthorized migration has been low and the unauthorized population of the country is down from its 2006 peak.

That’s a perfectly suitable definition of “deportation.”

The government simply can’t return more people than are trying to come in to begin with — so returns are partly dependent on the state of the economy. Removals, on the other hand, tell the story of the deliberate policy choices made over the last decade that are having lasting consequences for the people being expelled.

Meanwhile, Nora Caplan Bricker covers ICE’s “expedited removals”:

Why do fewer than a quarter of deportees ever get to see a judge? In part, because it’s the only way for ICE to reach its goal of deporting somewhere in the ballpark of 400,000 people a year. While funding for ICE and the Border Patrol swelled in the Bush years, funding for the system of immigration courts, which handle removal hearings, remained low—and it has in the Obama years, too. As a result, there are 363,239 immigration cases pending nationwide, according to the latest count by TRAC, a data analysis project at Syracuse University. The only way for ICE stay on schedule is to bypass the courts.