George Tehaar’s letter (“Deporter-in-Chief? That’s Obama, not Trump,” published July 2) correctly points out that deportations of undocumented immigrants under Obama exceeded every previous president and even our current president. He criticizes the (liberal) mainstream media’s rants about the horrors of Trump’s deportation policies while being quiet on the Obama deportations, 75-83% of which also lacked due process. Mr. Tehaar concludes this disparity is due a lack of knowledge, poor research, convenient amnesia; or an attempt to “get the President anyway possible, facts be damned”.

Both presidents had similar stated priorities to remove gang members, criminals, risks to public safety and national security. The primary difference in the media (and public) response may be due to some other factors not addressed by Tehaar. Obama’s program mostly focused on criminals and recent unauthorized border crossers (comprising about 85% of all removals/returnees) rather than ordinary immigration status violators in the US interior. Trump expanded the enforcement system to include non-citizens alleged to have committed potentially criminal acts and who may have abused public benefits. Included are immigrants charged but not convicted, but presumed guilty even if not proven in a court. More latitude was given to ICE agents under Trump with little guidance or oversight to determine who was actually criminal or a national security risk.

While Obama’s deportation procedures were also mostly lacking in due process, they were carried out quietly in a fast and efficient manner focused mostly on the border or recent illegal crossers, not interior non-criminal long term workers. Obama didn’t vilify or demonize the majority of immigrants seeking a better economic life or escaping horrible conditions in their home country. On the other hand, Trump’s rhetoric proceeding and during his mass deportation process included many outrageous false, misleading, exaggerated or gross generalizations about the nature of these immigrants (Note: the crime rates of immigrants are reportedly much lower than the native born population). Trump has generally characterized the immigrants as rapists, murderers, as poisoning our blood, persons released from prisons and mental institutions, and even terrorists.

To meet stated deportation quotas, ICE has focused on low hanging fruit such as day workers at Home Depot, farm workers, hospitality workers, and others at their places of employment. Arrests have been even made at immigration courts, schools, day care centers, hospitals, etc. often with masked ICE agents offering no official identification or warrants much like some third world militia. Many deportees have not been returned to their home countries but to a foreign prison (without due process) or other countries foreign to them. Most are labeled as criminals or gang members without any credible evidence, and sometimes based on loose interpretations of tattoos, clothing, or appearance. The roundups are so sloppy and chaotic that some innocent U.S. citizens have also been swept up. Perhaps this is why there has been so much recent fuss by the mainstream press, the courts, the public (protesters), and employers who lose valuable and necessary tax paying workers for businesses that support the U.S. economy.

Butch Reynolds

Bonney Lake