If someone asked which president deported more people, Barack Obama or Donald Trump, what would you guess?
The government’s own numbers make this an interesting comparison.
During the four fiscal years covering Obama’s first term, the Department of Homeland Security recorded about 1.6 million formal deportations.
During the four fiscal years covering Trump’s first term, it was about 1.2 million.
So yes, Obama’s number was higher.
But that doesn’t mean the two presidents approached immigration the same way.
They didn’t.
Obama set priorities
There were millions of people who could potentially face immigration enforcement, and the federal government had limited agents, detention space and resources.
So the Obama administration told immigration officials to focus on certain cases first.
That included people caught crossing the border, national-security cases and people with certain criminal convictions.
Someone outside those groups could still face deportation. They simply might not have been a priority for immigration officials.
And even with those priorities, the Obama administration still oversaw hundreds of thousands of formal removals each year.
Trump changed the approach
When Trump took office, his administration changed those enforcement priorities.
Certain cases were still specifically prioritized, including people convicted of crimes.
But immigration officers were also given broader authority to pursue other people who were legally eligible for deportation.
That meant someone didn’t necessarily have to fall into one of the specific priority groups to face immigration enforcement.
Broader enforcement didn’t automatically produce more formal deportations.
Obama’s administration had more targeted enforcement priorities while recording more formal removals over the comparable four-year period.
Trump’s administration expanded who immigration officers could pursue while recording fewer formal removals.
And that’s why the numbers and the policy have to be looked at together.
A deportation total tells us how many people were formally removed.
An enforcement policy tells us who the government was focusing on and how immigration officers were directed to use their authority.
Obama and Trump made different choices about enforcement.
But deportation itself wasn’t unique to either administration or either political party.
It has been part of America’s immigration system across administrations for decades.
The numbers tell one part of the story.
How presidents use the system tells the rest.