SCRAMBLE: An interesting immigration statistical comparison between Trump in 2025 and Obama in 2012

An interesting immigration statistical comparison between Trump in 2025 and Obama in 2012.

Citing the limited resources available for immigration enforcement and the impossibility of deporting 11 million undocumented people, the Obama administration sought to prioritize the use of the agency’s enforcement personnel, detention space, and removal assets. Noting that ICE could only remove an estimated 400,000 undocumented immigrants a year at most, representing less than 4% of the undocumented population in the U.S. during that time, the administration sought to channel limited resources towards more urgent threats. In a set of 2010 and 2011 memoranda from then-U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Director John Morton, the Obama administration created three categories of undocumented immigrants that would be prioritized for arrest and deportation. The first priority consisted of undocumented immigrants who posed a threat to national security or public safety, including those engaged in or suspected of terrorism or espionage, those convicted of a crime or possessing outstanding criminal warrants, or those who participated in organized criminal gang activity. Within this priority category, ICE would draw distinctions based on the severity of convictions: level 1 offenders were convicted of aggravated felonies, level 2 offenders were convicted of any felony, and level 3 offenders were convicted of a misdemeanor.

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