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Federal prosecutors have pursued hundreds of thousands more cases against immigrants in the country illegally under President Barack Obama than they did under the previous two White House administrations combined.
Almost 680,000 federal immigration charges have been filed in the last eight years, up from about 287,000 under President George W. Bush and fewer than 100,000 under President Bill Clinton, according to figures compiled by a university research center that tracks federal law enforcement.
David Burnham, co-founder of the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University, said the increase represents a joint crackdown by lawmakers and the Justice Department under Obama.
“This outcome is a combination of policies and actions by a very aggressive Congress and a very aggressive Obama administration both wanting to work the borders – keep people out, as Mr. Trump says,” Burnham told McClatchy.
Obama has long been described as the “deporter in chief” by immigration advocates who dispute President-elect Donald Trump’s characterization of Obama as soft on immigration.
But the new numbers provide the first concrete evidence of how Obama’s record compares with his predecessors’.
Burnham’s group, which aggregates raw data it obtains from the Justice Department, provides monthly updates of the figures on its website and sends out news releases each year when it compiles annual numbers. It just released figures for the 2016 federal fiscal year, which ended Sept. 30.
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