By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com
Immigrants nationwide are waiting anxiously to see how President Trump handles immigration enforcement after his rhetoric suggested a hardline approach.
What remains unclear is whether recent raids mark a departure from Obama administration’s policies, Newsday reports.
President Obama wasn’t exactly weak on immigration. In fact, his administration deported an estimated 2.5 million immigrants, more than his predecessors.
On Feb. 12, Trump tweeted, ““The crackdown on illegal criminals is merely the keeping of my campaign promise. Gang members, drug dealers & others are being removed!”
“The Border Patrol has traditionally picked up people and created a climate of fear for even those who have papers,” Meghan Maloney of the New York Immigration Project told the Buffalo News. “In this current climate, that fear is much more palpable.”
But the conservative National Review suggested last week that the deportation policies so far are “nothing new.”
“Illegal immigrants in the United States have long dealt with the fear that ICE officers would be knocking at their door,” it said. “In fiscal year 2012, for example, ICE removed over 400,000 illegal aliens, a number that was high enough to prompt frenzied anti-deportation rhetoric.”
