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So, kinda? I don't have a spectacular source, but there's this [1] Deportations were highest at the end of Bush's term. Obama gradually ramped down internal deportations. You may recall there was a pretty strong emphasis on DACA, the DREAM act, and a bunch of stuff about sanctuary cities. That got rolled back somewhat under Trump.

This has been a politically charged topic, and I'm doing my best to tread lightly.

My understanding is at the end of Obama's term, deportations were mostly driven by criminal activity. If someone got arrested for something, ICE is tipped off, and they're deported. On the other hand, they ran a stop sign, that was generally overlooked.

Later, there was a push to improve those numbers, so there were various people who were suspected or known to be undocumented. Some were visited and deported. There's various stories of homes being busted into. I have some opinions around all of that, but that's a minefield I don't want to walk through.

What is disturbing is, the enforcement varies with the political winds. They have a lot of power. "abuse" is pretty charged in this context. My preference is for the rules to be a lot less fuzzy. We already have a lot of rules around how citizens are treated, my preference is to treat people as citizens until proven otherwise. I'm ok with kicking in the door, if they can get a warrant.

There's lots of special cases, there's lots of horrible outlier examples. Yeah, I get the guy picking tomatoes getting paid under the table is not paying taxes. I know some folks don't report their tips.

Enforcement is super tricky, and I don't want to make it a million times harder, but I would like it to be more consistent. Again, this is a politically charged topic, which makes it tough to really think through (for me anyway).

[1] https://econofact.org/immigrant-deportations-during-the-trum...

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