To begin with the practice before the Obama administration was to conduct massive catch and release deportations which meant that migrants could opt to voluntarily go back to the border. These migrants, who never had access to the judicial system, were never counted in statistics.
Now that all migrants are provided legal representation the number is going to go up but from a statistical point of view it is comparing apples and pineapples and the people that are reporting it know it. In the first place they were critical of the catch and release operations and now they are using the change to pad the statistics
The following statement is a bold faced lie:
saying quotas will encourage agents to target easy cases, not the ones who pose the greatest safety risk.
Anyone who is familiar with ICE offices knows that the ICE offices that were spread through the interior of the US are being closed and that those officers are now being deployed in prisons.
For example
http://www.10news.com/news/9800305/detail.html?rss=sand&psp=newsSAN DIEGO -- As the debate heats up nationwide over the affects of illegal immigration on the U.S., there is a new program in San Diego County aimed at catching illegal immigrants accused of crimes.
A new program inside downtown San Diego’s Central Jail targets immigrants arrested for crimes. The program is called the Criminal Alien Program.
Agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a division of the Department of Homeland Security, screen people who have been arrested to identify anyone foreign born. Illegal immigrants can be deported, along with legal residents or visa holders who commit a serious crime.
"We're moving more aggressively into prisons and jails in order to remove the criminal element that doesn’t need to be in the U.S. at all,” said Michael Magee of ICE.
Since the program started on Jan. 28, it has identified 1,200 people in the jail who qualified for deportation -- about one-third illegal immigrants.
Last month alone, the program identified 381 deportable immigrants locked up for a broad range of crimes.
"Whether it be drunk in public, driving under the influence, to more severe crimes, burglary or armed robbery," said Lt. Mark Hays of the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department.
The immigration department was already screening in state and federal prisons, and in the courts.
What is new about this program is that it targets those brought to Central Jail -- for local crimes -- illegal immigrants whom, if not prosecuted, would have previously been released to the streets.
"These are people from another country that have come here to commit a crime. I don't think anyone across the spectrum would disagree that they don't need to be here and we should deport them," said Magee.
. . .
The Criminal Alien Program also operates out of the Las Colinas Women’s Jail and the Vista Jail.
In the last 11 months alone, more than 29,000 people have been deported from San Diego County.
According to ICE, of those deported, more than 8,700 people were criminals. Now there are some critics who say that some mistakes are being made but no informed immigration analyst is suggesting that the Obama is not moving ICE assets from inland inforcement areas, ending the sweeps and concentrating on sending back more aliens from the jails and prisons.
Your sources who are saying otherwise are promoting propoganda that is blatantly untrue.
In San Diego County alone where the vast majority of deportees are 'fence jumpers' detained by the border patrol almost 30 percent are from jails. None are from neighborhood sweeps that were conducted by the Bush Administration.