Why Trump Deports Fewer Immigrants Than Obama

{snip} Arrests by [Donald Trump’s] administration’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement in 2017 were about half what they were during President Barack Obama’s peak years, 2010 and 2011, according to a new report by the Migration Policy Institute.

During Obama’s first term, when he was laying the groundwork for what he hoped would be a comprehensive bargain on immigration, his administration aggressively enforced immigration law. ICE arrests peaked at more than 300,000 annually in 2010 and 2011. Deportations from the American interior — in other words, not of people apprehended near the border — surpassed 200,000 in both those years, also about twice the number reached in 2017. Pro-immigrant groups took to calling Obama the “deporter in chief.”

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After the House GOP killed the immigration deal that had passed the Senate in 2013 with a super-majority, Obama gave up. His final years were marked by a more lenient disposition toward immigrants and minimal appetite for enforcement against non-criminals.

Trump, scourge of Mexico, lambaster of Muslims, avenger of white pride, promised a harsh new day in which every undocumented immigrant would be a target. ICE acting director Thomas Homan said in 2017: “If you’re in this country illegally, and you committed a crime by entering this country, you should be uncomfortable. You should look over your shoulder.”

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Why are Trump’s deportation numbers so far below Obama’s peak? Credit resistance at the state and local level. California saw its share of total ICE arrests drop from 23 percent in 2013 to 14 percent in 2017. Local jurisdictions were more inclined to reject ICE requests for detainers, which seek to hold a particular subject for up to 48 hours, enabling ICE to take custody. Nationwide, detainer requests in 2017 were rejected at four times the rate of 2016.

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Close to 300 states and localities have sanctuary policies of varying force. About 200 of them do not honor ICE detainers. “ICE has responded by doing what it can — making more arrests in the community, which it can do on its own without local cooperation,” said Michelle Mittelstadt, director of communications and public affairs at the institute, a leading immigration think tank and research organization.

While sanctuaries resist, red states are stepping up. Texas’s share of total ICE arrests increased from 25 percent to 28 percent as California’s share declined. Given a free hand by Washington, ICE has grown much less discriminating in its targets. While arrests of noncitizens with convictions rose 7 percent from 2016 to 2017, arrests of noncitizens without criminal convictions increased 147 percent.

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Meanwhile, local and state officials who resist federal immigration policy are having success blunting Trump’s attack on undocumented residents. Immigration policy in the U.S. is heading in two diametrically opposed directions, with different outcomes in different geographies.

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