I have little faith in government statistics. When Obama took office, the Deceiver-in-Chief took all kinds of steps to thwart deportations and arrests. One of the big ones was by cutting back or eliminating the 287(g) programs that had local police departments cooperating with ICE in order to deport aliens picked up by the locals [ICE Agent's Union Blasts Obama Administration, ICE Director, by Jon Feere, CIS.org. June 24, 2011]. Obama severely restricted the Border Patrol’s “transportation checks,” where Border Patrol Agents went to buses, trains, and airports to question passengers. In many northern border stations, this was the bread and butter for arrests and the BP picked up a lot of aliens who had crossed the southern border, or, flown in legally, but overstayed their visas.

Obama knew that decreased deportations didn’t look good, so, instead of deporting more illegal aliens, he simply changed a category on paper of voluntary returns (VRs) and labeled them deportations. With the proverbial stroke of a pen, his deportation numbers were suddenly the highest on paper of any presidency. The reality on the ground was far different. He was labeled the Deporter-in-Chief as if to cover for his deception.

So, I was going through headlines when I read this: Don't Look Now but ICE Has Been Doing Its Job, by HotAir.com’s Karen Townsend, January 22, 2024.

Don't Look Now But ICE Has Been Doing Its Jobhttps://t.co/fBd76zVRUs

— HotAir.com (@hotairblog) January 22, 2024

Permit me to be skeptical.

Former Border Patrol Chief Rodney Scott once commented that the administration is good at doing this. His example was COVID screening. The Biden administration tested a few of the aliens coming across for COVID, but by no means all. Then, they released a statement saying, “Aliens are being tested for COVID.” They didn’t say ALL aliens are being tested for COVID, just that aliens are being tested. Most people didn’t realize how dishonest the administration was.

At almost the same time HotAir is reporting that ICE has been doing its job, the Center for Immigration Studies is reporting that ICE has NOT been doing its job: Three Years of Biden Immigration Policies Have Benefitted Criminal Aliens, by Jon Feere, CIS.org, January 9, 2024.

Now that it is obvious that immigration is a winning policy for Republicans, the Democrats are again pulling the wool over the public’s eyes. They did the same sort of deception with Haitian immigrants. After the fake horse whipping incident, they deported a few Haitians, claimed they were now deporting Haitians, then once the news of that died down, they gave the Haitians Temporary Protected Status (TPS). Talk about schizophrenic messaging.

Going back to the HotAir article, author Karen Townsend is not fooled. She writes

Just remember, this is a political exercise for Biden’s re-election campaign. It isn’t because Biden suddenly wants a secure border and ordered ICE to do its job. Nope. This is for the sake of the press releases.

Touting the removal or return of 495,000 individuals is a drop in the bucket compared to the 8 – 10 million illegals who have crossed the border during Biden’s term in office. It’s better than nothing but in the grand scheme of things, it’s not so impressive.

The administration will continue to lie to get its way. Once you catch them in one lie, they will distract you with another lie.