The media have always engaged in mass lying about immigration, but they're really going the extra mile this election cycle. Lie No. 1 is the toughness of the "bipartisan" border bill, covered in last week's column. (Quotes on "bipartisan" because not a single congressional Republican supports it, even the guy who co-sponsored it.)
Immigration Lie No. 2 is even more comically, straw-graspingly wrong: The Biden-Harris administration is deporting MORE illegals than Trump!
It's been reported everywhere. I'll include bylines so you know whose reporting never to trust:
-- Reuters by Ben Kellerman, Mica Rosenberg and Ted Hesson: "Biden is now deporting more people than Trump";
-- Politico by Jack Herrera: "Even as Trump slams the president for open borders, the Biden-Harris administration has kicked out far more immigrants than Trump ever managed to";
-- The Washington Post by Nick Miroff, Maria Sacchetti and Sarah Frostenson: "Biden officials deported or returned roughly 740,000 people ... exceed[ing] Trump's totals, which averaged roughly 500,000 annually";
-- CBS-Austin by Andrew Freeman: "Biden on track to exceed Trump, Obama in deportations in first term, data shows";
-- The Hill by Maria Cardona: "DHS under Biden is deporting 3.5 times as many people per month as DHS did under Trump";
-- Cato Institute by David J. Bier: "In absolute terms, the Biden DHS is removing 3.5 times as many people per month as the Trump DHS did."
This manifest absurdity originated with an illiterate misreading of a White House proclamation that said: "Total removals and returns in the 12 months following May 12, 2023, exceeded removals and returns in every full Fiscal Year since 2010."
Recommended
That is a meaningless formulation, as anyone who writes about immigration ought to know.
"Removals" and "returns" are totally different things. "Removal" means "deportation" -- generally a yearslong process, involving the capture and arrest of the illegal, immigration courts, hearings, lawyers, flights back to the home country, and punishment if the deportee is ever caught trying to enter our country again. (It's not surprising that a Biden administration official would be unfamiliar with this term.)
"Return" simply means "turned away at the border." Not letting someone in is not a "deportation." To combine "returns and removals" is like saying a judge issued 100 "capital and no-jail sentences."
The same illegal alien can be "returned" 20 times a day. He's free to keep trying and, once he gets in, he'll face less than a 5% chance of being deported under the Biden-Harris regime. Plus, an almost 100% chance of receiving government benefits and free travel to the major U.S. city of his choice. Limit one free trip per illegal. Not available in all states. Click on QR code for details. Void where prohibited.
With those odds, there are a lot more foreigners showing up at our border. More open borders, more turn-aways.
Needless to say, Biden isn't remotely deporting as many illegals as Trump did, even though he's created millions more to deport. Here are the official government figures:
Deportations under Trump:
2017: 226,119 illegals deported;
2018: 256,085 illegals deported;
2019: 267,258 illegals deported;
2020 185,884 illegals deported.
Deportations under Biden:
2021: 59,011 illegals deported;
2022: 72,177 illegals deported;
2023: 142,580 illegals deported.
The main takeaway is that people who write about immigration for a living -- at Reuters, Politico, The Washington Post, CBS, The Hill, Cato Institute, etc. -- have absolutely no idea what they're talking about.
Even if Biden were deporting more illegals than Trump -- and he's not -- he's got a lot more to deport. In the past three years, more than 10 million illegal aliens have come in, with his and Harris' active encouragement.
While campaigning for president, both Biden and Harris promised to overturn any government policies intended to discourage illegal immigration, and Harris repeatedly said that it shouldn't even be a crime to enter our country illegally. Both supported giving illegals free health care and numerous other rewards for breaking our laws.
Sadly, unlike Trump, they kept their immigration promises. Biden's first day in office, he ordered the immediate cessation of any work on the border wall. Over the next few weeks, Joe's handlers used a mechanical auto-pen to "sign" 94 executive orders on immigration, a majority of them rescinding Trump policies -- the very policies that had cut illegal immigration to historic lows.
With the red carpet rolled out, illegal immigration to our country exploded, from an average of 500,000 a year under Trump, to more than 2 million a year under Biden-Harris. (The onslaught of the world's destitute actually wore out three red carpets at the border.)
Terrorists, murderers and rapists from around the world have been pouring across our borders, north and south. Illegal crossings on the U.S.-Canada border have increased by more than 1000% under this administration. Some illegals are so busy collecting benefits and committing crimes that the barely have time to vote.
Biden and Harris want to find the "root cause" of illegal immigration? The root cause is them.
With millions of foreign criminals rampaging across our country, hijacking school buses in California, seizing apartment complexes at gunpoint in Colorado, and turning New York City into the slums of Caracas -- all at the low, low price to Americans of only $150 billion a year -- I can certainly see why Democrats would like to blame Trump.
Unfortunately for them, no person of ordinary intelligence is going to believe them. (Obviously, this excludes U.S. journalists.)
Here's an idea for Democrats. Why not checkmate Trump by building a wall and deporting illegal aliens? As he said: "If Joe Biden truly wanted to secure the border ... all [he] needs to do is to reimpose every single border policy of the former president of the United States, Donald J. Trump."
What's the counterargument to that?
Or how about merely not sending federal agents to dismantle the barbed wire fencing on the border put up by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott?
You'll totally have Trump on the run! Isn't that what you care about, Democrats? Or is the opposition to Trump merely a cover for your real objective: Destroying the United States of America?
Join the conversation as a VIP Member