Politics
Former Obama Era ICE Director Admits Trump Is Making Excellent Progress With Deportations
John Sandweg, who served as acting ICE Director under former President Barack Obama, admitted that the Trump Administration is finding success in convincing illegal aliens self-deport.
“Look, I think we’re going to find here is that the outcomes, maybe this year are not so dramatically different, certainly, let’s say, you compare it to the Obama years,” Sandweg told NewsNation. “I don’t think it’s fair to compare it to the Biden years, because, until the last six months of the Biden administration, we had a completely different border, we had hundreds of thousands of people come across and making asylum claims, that bogs down ICE and their internal operations.”
The former ICE director went on to note that in addition to Trump’s efforts to ramp up interior deportations, the administration differs from previous approaches to immigration reform due to its insistence on self-deportations. “I think you’ve seen that in the rhetoric. They’ve really shifted to overtly discussing that, and they’re not — what they’re trying to do is by taking part of the guardrails off, is create a climate of fear where more people are going to self-deport,” Sandweg continued.
“What we don’t know yet is what impact this has had on the population that lived here. They’re now looking at this saying, ‘hey, I’m scared now living in the U.S. I might end up in an El Salvadoran prison. I might be detained or deported. I’m just going to leave voluntarily while I can.’”
Migrants from Columbia wait to be processed after turning themselves over to authorities at the United States and Mexico border May 12, 2021 in Yuma, Arizona.
In addition to border encounters plummeting to record lows along the southern border and nationwide deportation efforts targeting illegal aliens who have been convicted of additional crimes, the Trump Administration has invested significant efforts into encouraging illegal aliens to self-deport. President Trump on his first day in office immediately moved to end the Biden Administration’s “catch and release” policies, which saw millions of illegal aliens escorted into the country and later transported into the interior United States.
He also reinstated a number of first term policies that were rescinded by former President Biden, including the popular Remain in Mexico policy, which required prospective asylum seekers to wait in Mexico while their claims are processed.
In addition, the White House has ended temporary protective status for more than two million foreign nationals from countries were thorough vetting is next to impossible, such as Haiti, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Cuba. Foreign nationals who scheduled their own entry into the United States through the Biden Administration’s CBP One app are now being encouraged to self-deport through the re-purposed CBP Home app, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirsti Noem confirmed earlier this week.
DHS has given affected foreign nationals deadlines to self-deport before they will be targeted for arrest and deportation.
