FormerPresident Barack Obamawarned of a "weak commitment" to democracy from PresidentDonald Trump's administration, according to multiple media reports. While Obama didn't mention Trump by name at the June 17 conversation in Connecticut, he said, "those who are in charge of the federal government right now, there is a weak commitment to ... our understanding of how a liberal democracy is supposed to work." The Trump administration's expansion of federal power promptednationwide protests, which organizers said could have been bolstered by thefederal crackdownon the Los Angeles protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids. Trump has long promised the greatest deportation program in history. How does he compare? Are people protesting more than usual?'Jaw-dropping' number planned on Trump's birthday By annual comparisons, yes. Obama had earned the critical reputation as "deporter in chief," and Trump's first term lagged behind Obama in numbers. Throughout eight years in office, the Obama administration logged more than3.1 million ICE deportations, according to Syracuse's Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse. The peak was fiscal year 2012, when more than 407,000 people were removed. By comparison, the first Trump administration maxed out at deporting 269,000 people in 2019, according to the same TRAC data set. Across four years, the Trump administration recorded fewer than 932,000 deportations. The Trump administration had deported about 200,000 people over four months, border czarTom Homansaid in late May. That is still less than the number of deportations in a similar period under PresidentJoe Biden, which the White House credits to fewer people coming to the border. Trump called on ICE officers in a June 15 Truth Social post to "do all in their power to achieve the very important goal of delivering the singlelargest Mass Deportation Programin History." Contributing:Lauren Villagran, Bart Jansen, Aysha Bagchi,Joey Garrison,Zac Anderson, USA TODAY Kinsey Crowley is the Trump Connect reporter for the USA TODAY Network. Reach her at kcrowley@gannett.com. Follow her on X and TikTok @kinseycrowley or Bluesky at @kinseycrowley.bsky.social. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY:Did Barack Obama deport more people than Donald Trump?
