‘Looked the other way’
Dear Editor:
Re: ‘Stupidity’, Feb. 12.
Under Barack Obama’s presidency, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents also went into the streets to make arrests, including into “sanctuary” cities such as Chicago. Over three million people were deported plus another two million removed at the border under Obama.
The LA Times reported on ICE entering homes without warrants, scaring children, and doing things that today have the left in a panic. Most of the media and Democrats looked the other way.
Over the eight-year period of the Obama administration, the percentage of removals carried out without a hearing before an immigration judge averaged roughly 74%.
ICE under Trump has made about 595,000 arrests (from an article dated Feb. 6), of which 170 were U.S. citizens, and of those 130 were arrested for interfering with or assaulting officers. Forty mistakes out of 595,000 isn’t an overwhelming number. ICE under Obama made many more mistaken arrests.
Trump may have many faults, but he is fulfilling his election promise to Americans to begin mass deportation of the millions of illegal immigrants he inherited from President Joe Biden. ICE’s top priority remains violent offenders. As of January 2026, those with criminal convictions or pending charges represented 66% of arrests.
If the left allowed agents to enforce the law as they did under Obama, there would be no need for violent ICE responses. If they don’t like the law, there are democratic ways to change it.
Henry Brunsveld,
Puslinch