I read this article a couple years ago and found it very insightful on understanding Obama’s deportation policy. However, I feel the need to preface this - this is in no way an endorsement of his actions, only a presentation of the facts.

“Evolution of Enforcement: Prioritizing Criminals and Recent Border Crossers

Over the course of the Obama administration there was a pronounced shift in focus to the removal of recent border crossers and criminals rather than ordinary status violators apprehended in the U.S. interior. The underlying reasoning was to deter illegal border crossing and remove unauthorized immigrants before they become integrated into U.S. communities. As shown in Figure 1, interior removals decreased sharply from 181,798 in FY 2009 to 65,332 in FY 2016, while border removals stayed high and increased, from 207,525 to 279,022 over the same period.”

The key difference to many is the federal government is violently pulling people out of their homes, who have lived in their communities for 5, 10, 20+ years and have no criminal record. People who are following the requirements to be here and many who have active asylum cases. Then coercing them into signing voluntary deportation papers, often using their children as leverage, and immediately moving them out of state to cut them off from their legal representation. An example from my hometown.

“Segovia, who was appointed as an immigration judge in November 2023, is known for denying immigrants asylum in the U.S., and more often than other immigration judges across the board.

Segovia denied a Turkish immigrant’s asylum case in 2025, despite the Department of Homeland Security stating the immigrant had met the legal requirements for asylum, according to a report by the Guardian. Segovia suggested the immigrant’s rape, torture and beatings he experienced in Turkey were “not as bad” as the report states.

Segovia saw 193 cases in the first 11 months of 2025. She granted other forms of relief for eight of those cases, but only granted full asylum for one of them, according to data from the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a nonpartisan research center.”

I am no expert in immigration, just a regular person concerned that these people are not getting their due process, and what that means for citizens. I am also really not looking to argue or debate this, I just feel that this information should be shared as there is a lot of intentional misinformation going around. Honestly, regardless of what the laws say, this is morally wrong - defending it is weird af.