U.S. House Minority Leader Pelosi Slams Fellow Democrat Obama over His High Deportation Record

In a rare political move, U.S. House of Representative Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi took aim at President Barack Obama for the record number of deportations that have occurred during his tenure.

Pelosi, a California Democrat, said the Obama administration’s nearly two million deportations seem in contradiction to the policy adopted during his tenure of applying discretion to the removal of undocumented immigrants.

That policy, from 2010, held that deportation efforts would prioritize immigrants who pose a public safety or national security threat.

But Pelosi, in an interview over the weekend with Spanish-language TV network Telemundo, said that people who do not meet the criterion of high-priority deportation targets were being deported in high numbers.

“If somebody is here without sufficient documentation, that is not reason for deportation,” Pelosi said, according to a transcript. “If somebody has broken the law, committed a felony or something, that’s a different story. And when those people are apprehended, they are deported.  So I don’t see any reason for these deportations.”

Pelosi also indicated that she has been raising concern for years.

“For years we have been after the administration not to have this disparity of discretion that is used. It’s wrong.”

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