Thread: Obama administration lies about deportations

It’s official. Liberal Democrats can’t do law enforcement. And when they try, they make a mess of things.


Here’s why: They feel that they need to be extra tough to counter the stereotype that they’re soft on crime. And sometimes, they wind up being so tough that they cross the line and violate due process. That causes them to get blowback from their left-wing base, and they respond either by retreating from their hard-line or by hiding in a fog of confusion.


If you doubt it, just look at the messy way in which the Obama administration has handled what should be a cut and dried process: the deportation of illegal immigrants.


In the nearly three years since Barack Obama took office, his administration has fired up the engines and deported a record number of illegal immigrants — more than 1.2 million. The president reached this milestone not to please Republican lawmakers in Congress, as suggested by the conventional wisdom in Washington, D.C. He did it to calm those elements of his own Democratic base — unions, African-Americans, blue collar workers, etc — that have come to feel threatened by illegal immigrants and the cheap and dependable labor they provide. You wouldn’t know it from listening to the liberal media, but illegal immigration is no more popular among Democrats in the Rust Belt states than it is with Republicans in the Deep South.


But all those deportations didn’t come without a price. Latinos are not happy. Granted, a small percentage of that population favors an open border and opposes deportations all together. But that’s the fringe. The more common view in the Latino community is that the power to deport individuals, and rip them from their families, should be wielded with extreme caution. And it’s obvious that Obama is not doing that.

According to polls, most Latinos favor removing criminal aliens — that is, illegal immigrants who have committed actual crimes (murder, assault, robbery, rape, drunk driving etc). in addition to the civil infraction of entering the country illegally. No surprise there. No one cares about criminals. They’re the low-hanging fruit of the immigration enforcement debate.

And officials in the Obama administration were banking on that distinction when they concocted an elaborate lie — and began to push it as hard as they could.

In October, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano claimed that 55 percent of the people deported in fiscal 2011 were “criminal aliens.” Cecilia Munoz, the head of the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, wrote an article on the White House Blog in which she claimed that “more than half of all removals are people with criminal records.”

Administration officials have cited the 55 percent figure repeatedly in the last few months in the hopes that critics would conclude that most of those deported by this administration had it coming, and that this would quell the criticism.

There is only one problem with the administration’s figure: it’s not even a little bit true. Researchers at Syracuse University pored over the records of thousands of deportation proceedings in immigration courts in all 50 states. They discovered that the actual percentage of deportees who were criminal aliens is much lower than the administration claims. According to the findings, only about 14.9 percent of the people deported this year were charged with any criminal offense. That means 85.1 percent committed no infraction other than being in the country illegally, which is a civil offense.

So the administration has been caught in yet another lie. That’s not news. But in this case, it was a lie told to fool people — specifically Latino voters — into thinking that this bunch is more liberal on immigration than it really is.

Luckily, not many people seem to have fallen for it. They must have known that most of the people being deported aren’t criminals — but landscapers, nannies, housekeepers, and other ordinary folks trying to scratch out a living for themselves and a better future for their children.

Are these people in the country illegally? Yes, apparently so. Should they be deported? Yes, of course.

So why go to the trouble of pretending otherwise? Why won’t this administration simply do what it feels duty bound to do, without pretending to be something it isn’t? It should apprehend and remove those who have shown contempt for our nation’s immigration laws.

But is it too much to ask that it do so without showing contempt for the rest of us?

Ruben Navarrette Jr. is a member of the editorial board of the San Diego Union Tribune, a nationally syndicated columnist, a frequent lecturer, and a regular contributor to CNN.com.

http://pjmedia.com/blog/obama-admini...inglepage=true

I have to admit I feel so much better now that I know we're not the only ones he's lying to!
350 million people in this country, and this is the best we can come up with!

Ruben Navarrette Jr: "Are these people in the country illegally? Yes, apparently so. Should they be deported? Yes, of course."
Ruben Navarrette Jr? Really?
Wow! Not even Ron Paul say's that....

Originally Posted by airdale

Ruben Navarrette Jr: "Are these people in the country illegally? Yes, apparently so. Should they be deported? Yes, of course."
Ruben Navarrette Jr? Really?
Wow! Not even Ron Paul say's that....

I'm surprised to hear Ol' Ruben buddy say it!

Originally Posted by stevetheroofer

I'm surprised to hear Ol' Ruben buddy say it!

Ain't my buddy, I ain't got no buddies...!
Only brothers and sisters..
Maybe we're turning Ole Roll ur R's Ruben around. More than likely though an uninsured should of been deported but let lose by Obama illegal alien hit his car..So now he's pissed.
It will happen to all of them eventually!

Here's the actual article by Ruben. (Thanks to Google search.)

fresnobee.com
OPINION
Sunday, Dec. 11, 2011 | 12:00 AM

SAN DIEGO -- You really have to hand it to the Obama administration. It doesn't always do the right thing, but it sure knows how to cover its tracks when it does the wrong thing.

It changes the subject, misrepresents facts, redirects blame, manipulates statistics and creates a fog of confusion so thick that it can slip away and avoid accountability.

I know people are confused because, as I travel the country, I hear over and over again from Latino officials and immigration activists the same administration talking points -- none of which are even a little bit true.

Here are three things for which the administration would prefer not to be held accountable by Hispanic voters, especially during a re-election campaign:

* The fact that the administration has, for political reasons, racked up a record number of deportations in the three years President Obama has held office.

When the administration gets heat from immigration advocates or Latino lawmakers, it deflects the criticism by blaming Republicans in Congress for not passing immigration reform.

If the White House could blame Republicans for deportations, it would. But that's not easy to do since all the apprehensions and deportations -- more than 1.2 million since Obama's inauguration -- are happening through the executive branch.

* The fact that these deportation statistics have been made possible by a poorly conceived and dangerous program called Secure Communities that was forced down the throats of state and local governments and that uses local police as a force multiplier by roping officers into the enforcement of federal immigration law.

This is the same thing, by the way, that the administration is faulting Arizona, Alabama, South Carolina and other states for doing with a series of likewise poorly conceived and dangerous laws.

* The fact that the administration appears to be actively trying to mislead supporters into believing that most of the people it has deported were "criminals" and not folks who were just trying to earn a living.

Or that it is employing "prosecutorial discretion" so illegal immigrants, whose only infraction is being out of status or who have extenuating circumstances -- college students, or parents with U.S.-born children, or senior citizens who have long lived in this country -- can remain in the United States.

Neither assertion is true, according to a group of persistent researchers with the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) at Syracuse University.

Why persistent? The researchers tried to get information from the Department of Homeland Security under the Freedom of Information Act about who was deported. The department wouldn't provide it.

So the researchers did an end-run and asked the Department of Justice for the information. After all, it is the DOJ that prosecutes "criminals." So Justice would know how many of the people being arrested and shipped out of the country fit that description, and it shared the information.

In October 2011, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano claimed that 55% of the people deported in fiscal 2011 were "riminal aliens."

Cecilia Munoz, the head of the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, wrote an article on the White House Blog in which she claimed that "more than half of all removals are people with criminal records."

So what did the researchers find? Poring over the records of thousands of deportation proceedings in immigration courts in all 50 states, they discovered that the actual percentage of deportees who were criminal aliens is much lower than the administration claimed.

According to TRAC, only about 14.9% of the people deported this year were charged with any criminal offense.

This means that 85.1% committed no infraction other than being in the country illegally, which is a civil offense.

These aren't criminals. These are the housekeepers and landscapers to whom we give our security codes.

Why does this matter? Because it looks as though administration officials have been caught in a lie.

The truth is this bunch is trying to deport every illegal immigrant it can get its hands on -- whether they're a drug dealer or a gardener -- and then going to great lengths to advance the perception that only undesirables are being removed.

Thus, the White House is doing the same thing that Democrats are always accusing Republicans of doing: demonizing immigrants. And for that, the Obama administration must be held accountable.

Ruben Navarrette's email address is ruben@rubennavarrette.com.

Read more here: http://www.fresnobee.com/2011/12/11/...#storylink=cpy

I thought something seemed familiar: http://www.alipac.us/threads/245917-...ht+deportation

ICE’s Own Data Fails To Back Enforcement Claims


January 06, 2012
Judicial Watch

The Homeland Security agency charged with immigration enforcement has repeatedly lied to Congress, the American people and the media by drastically increasing the number of individuals that have been apprehended, deported or detained.

The shameful revelation was made this week by a nonprofit university group dedicated to researching the U.S. government. The nonpartisan New York-based data research center, Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), provides detailed information about the operation of hundreds of government agencies. Immigration is one of many areas it researches.

For the better part of the last two years TRAC has been engaged in a fierce legal battle with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) over records involving the agency’s enforcement activities.

After repeatedly getting stonewalled, TRAC was recently provided with some of the documents involving statistics of individuals who had been arrested, detained, charged, returned or removed from the country during a specific period.

Although ICE is still withholding much of the information, the files that have been furnished so far reveal “vast discrepancies” in many areas, according to a case-by-case analysis conducted by TRAC. The initial probe reveals that official ICE statements claimed 34 times more detentions, 24 times more deportations and almost five times more apprehensions than its own data. This certainly indicates that ICE knowingly lied to lawmakers and the press to embellish its enforcement activities.

For instance, during a one-year period that ICE claimed it detained 233,417 individuals it really only detained 6,778, according to agency’s own records. That same year, ICE said it deported 166,075 people when it really only deported 6,906 and it only apprehended 21,339 compared to claims that it had apprehended 102,034.

TRAC is still working to get the rest of the records and points out in an appeal filed this week that “ICE has been making highly exaggerated and inaccurate claims about the level of its enforcement activities,” or it is “withholding on a massive scale.” TRAC further states that the agency’s apparent inability to substantiate the level of its claimed enforcement activities is a very significant matter that’s central to the public debate on federal enforcement policy and the presidential election campaign.

In early December TRAC also uncovered records that show the Obama Administration inflated statistics to show that it had deported a record-high number of illegal immigrants with criminal records. The documents reveal that the figure is actually at an all-time low and rapidly decreasing as the administration brags about removing an unprecedented number of criminal aliens.

http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/20...cement-claims/

Added an article from above to the Homepage:

http://www.alipac.us/content/22-ICE-...rcement-Claims