Deportation: A changing standard?
By David Reintjes
web posted February 2, 2026
Is the standard for the Left changing over time? It would seem so. A mere dozen years ago our president Barrack Obama was deporting astronomical numbers of illegal immigrants. Trump attempted to cement this in place with the Southern Border Wall. However, in the four short years between Obama and Biden, a change seems to have swept the Left. Deportation is no longer in style.
Under the presidency of Joseph Biden (and Kamala Harris towards the end of the term) deportation became taboo. Permitting an open southern border suddenly became chic. Now, what caused this sudden change? Was it perhaps Donald Trump's active goading of the Left that caused them to enact a party-wide 180? I do not know. It is hard to see the logic behind it.
A quote from an article by Kinsey Crowley last June:
Throughout eight years in office, the Obama administration logged more than 3.1 million ICE deportations, according to Syracuse's Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse. The peak was fiscal year 2012, when more than 407,000 people were removed. By comparison, the first Trump administration maxed out at deporting 269,000 people in 2019, according to the same TRAC data set. Across four years, the Trump administration recorded fewer than 932,000 deportations.
Now, this is just speculation, but could it be that the Left would make yet another 180 if this logical break of theirs was displayed to them? I don't know. We shall see over the course of the next two years. 
This is David Reintjes' first contribution to Enter Stage Right. (c) 2026, David Reintjes.
