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PHOENIX - The Obama administration is deporting more illegal immigrants than ever before. Statistics compiled at Syracuse
University challenge criticism by Republicans, including Gov. Jan Brewer, that federal authorities are failing to deal with the
problem. Findings by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse show more illegal immigrants were removed from the
United States during the first nine months of this fiscal year than during the same period in 2008, when Republican George W. Bush
was president and controlled immigration enforcement. The number of those ejected from the country between Oct. 1, 2009, and June 30 of this year is nearly twice as high as it was in the
same period ending June 30, 2005. The TRAC report also shows the Obama administration is devoting more resources to removing those who have committed serious crimes. During the first nine months of the fiscal year, TRAC, using mmigration and Customs Enforcement data, figures 136,714 "criminal aliens" were deported. That same figure in 2008 was 85,334. That was counterbalanced by a decrease in removals of non-criminal aliens. The figure for the first nine months of this fiscal year is142,321, compared to 169,429 at the same time in 2008. The report comes in the middle of an ongoing barrage of criticism at the president and homeland security chief Janet Napolitano by
many Republicans. And integral to that has been Arizona's approval of a tough new law aimed giving police more power to detain
immigrants - though much of that has been stayed by a federal judge - based on claims the state needs to act because the federal
government is not.
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