During former President Donald Trump’s administration (2017-2021), immigrant deportations were one of the most controversial topics and widely covered by the US and global media.
The measure, one of several adopted by the then head of the White House to control activity at the borders, was often criticized and portrayed by major media outlets as “cruel” and “inhumane”.
However, deportations, so criticized by the media in the Trump era, not only continued under Joe Biden’s government, but were also intensified, according to information recently released by the Democratic government.
According to the data, Biden, who arrived at the White House as a critic of Trump’s policies, has already deported more than 700 thousand people in just 12 monthsa record that, according to the government itself, surpasses any year since 2011.
As announced by the United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP), since the end of Title 42, in May 2023, until May this year, the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS, for its acronym in English) deported 720 thousand individuals, most of them immigrants who crossed American borders illegally and 109 thousand families.
In addition to government data, at the beginning of this year, broadcaster information WUSAaffiliate of CBS in the US, revealed that, in 2018 and 2020, Trump deported 47.4% of the illegal immigrants he located. The Biden government, between January 2021 and March 2023 alone, deported 50.9% of the immigrants it encountered.
The high number of deportations carried out by the Democratic government contrasts sharply with the policy defended by Biden and the media that praised him during his victorious 2020 presidential campaign.
At that time, the current US president condemned the actions imposed by Trump, including deportations, to control immigration, and promised a different approach, considered more open and “compassionate”.
In fact, immigration policy under the Biden administration has become more open, just note that the US is currently facing one of its most serious crises involving immigrants, caused by a widespread lack of control at the southern border, which may have also contributed to the high number of deportations. The situation is so serious that it could even cost the Democrat re-election.
Despite the statistics, the media is not covering the deportations carried out by Biden in the same way as those carried out by the Trump administration. While the Republican’s policies, which sought to restrict the entry of asylum seekers and deport illegal immigrants and criminals, often received scathing criticism, deportations of these same individuals under the Biden administration have often been described more neutrally or, in some cases, even more favorable by major newspapers.
During the Trump administration, it was common to see the main media outlets in the US and around the world publish images of immigrant children separated from their families, a way of sensitizing the public with the narrative that the government was “inhumane”.
The conditions considered “precarious” by the same media of the shelters where these immigrants were placed when they entered the US irregularly also dominated the headlines of major newspapers, always fueling a perception that the Trump administration treated those crossing the border “cruelly”.
For example, an opinion article published in the American newspaper The Washington Post in 2019, titled “Trump’s immigration policies speak louder than his racist and xenophobic words”criticized the Republican government’s position in relation to immigration, highlighting the then president’s statements and also the supposed situation of shelters where some children who entered the USA illegally were staying.
In 2018, the The New York Times also followed this line, publishing an article critical of Trump’s immigration policies, accusing him of separating families. However, the 720,000 immigrants deported in just 12 months during the Biden administration, a record, did not receive the same negative emphasis, even with the existence of some reports of family separation — a topic that generated scandals during the republican government, according to the example of the Teams.
Biden’s promise of “more humane treatment” for immigrants appears not to have come true, but American and global newspapers barely mention this fact. In an election year, the Democrat has tried to adopt a more “tough” stance towards those who cross the border illegally, including signing a new executive order that restricts the entry of illegals, but his actions have not been questioned as much as Trump’s were.
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