Deporter-in-Chief? Not According to the Data

In his eight years in office, President Obama’s legacy on immigration can best be described as uneasy: though he campaigned on, championed, and eventually achieved limited reform, he also presided over the deportation of 2.5 million individuals throughout his two terms. Relying on executive orders in a time of gridlock, Obama’s push for change reached its peak in 2012 when he established the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program; in that same year, deportation numbers reached an all-time high, a fact coming at odds with the administration’s focus on progressive immigration reform. Despite sweeping characterizations from both sides, however, the data tells a different story: since 2012, the administration has deported fewer individuals on a year-by-year basis, while accepting more eligible immigrants into DACA — the lynchpin program that makes less deportations possible in the very first place, ensuring an effective (if still conflicted) legacy.

Rising from the ashes of the defeated DREAM Act, DACA helps to reiterate the importance of young, educated immigrants to the United States. If an undocumented immigrant enters the United States as a child before 2007 and has remained since with a clean criminal record and educational history, they are eligible to apply for “deferred action” — a temporary, renewable exemption from deportation plus work permit.

Signed into law by President Obama in June 2012, the policy has been assailed from all sides, most notably through United States v. Texas, a court challenge that has led to two relative victories: an injunction on the “expansion” of DACA to undocumented parents of U.S. citizens, and consideration of the case before the U.S. Supreme Court. Despite such obstacles, the DACA program has provided deferred action status to over 1.1 million previously undocumented immigrants, accepting over 90% of applicants every year.

In its first year, USCIS received over 150,000 applications. Four years later, over 1.3 million applications have been filed (United 3). Demographically, the vast majority (86%) of recipients are Mexican, and reside in either California (32%) or Texas (18%).

But how does DACA play into U.S. immigration policy at large, especially in a system so highly dependent on deportation? In the first full year of George W. Bush’s presidency, over 180,000 people were deported from the United States. In contrast, the first year of Obama’s first term led to nearly 390,000 deportations. The twofold increase rightfully gives cause for concern — why would a President who champions progressive reform act to deport so many, knowing the damaging familial consequences? With a critical examination of the data, however, the story is different: though the total number of deportations since 2008 have increased in comparison to the Bush presidency, the rate has decreased year by year: 389,834 deportations (2009) drops steadily — in the space of six years — to 235,413 in 2015.

The downwards trend, then, directly undermines the narrative that President Obama is unilaterally deporting more immigrants than ever, an assertion disproved further by looking at the positive trend of deportation rates under George W. Bush. Though only 189,026 people were deported in 2001, the trend steadily increases by around 30,000 extra deportees every year (except 2002), eventually leading to nearly 360,000 deportations by the end of Bush’s presidency. In comparison, though Obama’s deportation rates start out higher, they show concrete evidence of a year-by-year decrease — an achievement that is helped in no small part by the creation of DACA.

At the same time, DACA also helped to facilitate the success of fundamental deportation policy change, which further drives figures downward. Two years after President Obama signed DACA into law, Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson sent a memorandum concerning the “apprehension, detention, and removal of aliens” in the United States, most notably putting into action a priority-based system for deportations, with threats to national security at the very top and non-criminals with merely immigration law violations at the other end.

This marked a huge paradigm shift in U.S. deportation policy, which (since the passage of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996) had relied upon low legal barriers to deport ever-increasing numbers of immigrants — manifest through the huge increase of deportations under the Bush administration.

The new policy’s impact, then, can easily be quantified through data: in 2014, convicted criminals formed 56% of the total number of deportations, whereas 59% of those deported in 2015 were convicted criminals. At the same time, 40,000 fewer people were deported in 2015 as opposed to the previous year, showing a clear link between recomposed policy and decreased removal rates. Moreover, DACA has made the rewritten policy far more effective; by allowing a large subsection of the undocumented immigrant population to step out from the shadows, USCIS can refocus their resources towards those higher on their list of priorities with greater efficacy.

Even as it faces legal scrutiny under the Supreme Court, DACA’s benefits are clear — not only has it helped over 1.1 million previously undocumented immigrants, but also has provided USCIS with the leeway necessary to refocus deportation policy, driving deportation numbers downward year-by-year. What yet remains to be seen, however, is DACA’s long term impacts for its recipients and the American people at large. Ultimately, as the nation inches ever-closer to an election day defined by demagogues and divisive rhetoric, Obama’s legacy on immigration will only play an ever-increasing role in the future of this nation.

This article was created as part of an assignment in GOV 374N at the University of Texas at Austin.