Trump’s Promise of Millions of Deportations Is Yet to Be Fulfilled

While President Trump ran his 2016 presidential campaign on implementing restrictive immigration policies, his administration has struggled to enact key elements of this agenda. “Trump’s Promise of Millions of Deportations Is Yet to Be Fulfilled,” published by the Migration Policy Institute, analyzes the president’s deportation efforts, a key feature of his campaign, and speculates on the impact of the 2020 presidential election on the future of the U.S. immigration system. Despite President Trump’s hundreds of far-reaching executive orders on immigration, his administration oversaw less than half as many deportations during his first three years in office as did President Obama in his first three years. This discrepancy, according to the article, is partially explained by increased resistance from pro-immigrant local and state officials, many of whom enacted retaliatory “sanctuary” policies that limited local cooperation with federal authorities. In contrast with what the authors describe as the aggressive and restrictive approach to immigrant enforcement of the Trump administration, the article speculates that a new administration would confine interior enforcement to individuals with serious criminal records, empower local jurisdictions to set their own enforcement priorities, and end workplace and community enforcement operations. (Kyla Schmitt for The Immigrant Learning Center’s Public Education Institute)

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