Donald Trump has vowed to kick off his presidency by swiftly kicking out one segment of the immigrant population: criminals.
But
that's exactly what the Obama administration says it's been doing for
eight years. More than 2.4 million people have been deported under
President Barack Obama, earning him the scathing nickname of "deporter in chief"
among some immigrant advocacy groups. Nearly half of those removals
were immigrants with criminal convictions, an explicit priority of the
administration.
Though
Trump made cracking down on illegal immigration a cornerstone of his
campaign, critics question whether he'll be able to accelerate
deportations much. Some experts say there are bottlenecks in the system
that prevented Obama from deporting more immigrants
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| President elect Donald Trump with President Obama at the White house |
Obama and Trump clearly don't see eye to
eye on many aspects of immigration. Obama backs a pathway to
citizenship. Trump plans to build a wall on the southern border. But
there's one area where they agree. When it comes to the issue of
deporting criminals, even their rhetoric sounds similar.
Here's Obama's take on whom authorities should focus on deporting:
And here's what Trump said this month: