TallGuyJohninBKK

And more debunking of Trump and Co.'s nonsense as posted in the OP of this thread: Just because the cited people on the ICE document are not in ICE custody doesn't mean they at large in society, since the ICE list counts people who in fact are held in custody elsewhere -- making the Trump and Co.'s claims about the statistics bogus. Trump, Vance Wrong About ‘Illegal Immigrant Murderers’ September 30, 2024 ... In its statement, the Department of Homeland Security said data in Lechleitner’s letter had been “misinterpreted.” “The data goes back decades; it includes individuals who entered the country over the past 40 years or more, the vast majority of whose custody determination was made long before this Administration,” the statement said. “It also includes many who are under the jurisdiction or currently incarcerated by federal, state or local law enforcement partners.” ... Similarly, Michelle Mittelstadt, director of communications for the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute, told us that people have been on the non-detained docket “for decades.” “There is a lot of confusion around the non-detained docket,” including “who is on it and how long they’ve been on it,” Mittelstadt said in an email. “This docket has grown under multiple administrations, including the Trump one. Significant numbers of people on the docket have been on it for decades.” https://www.factcheck.org/2024/09/trump-vance-wrong-about-illegal-immigrant-murderers/

And more of the same documenting that the above cited figures are nonsense. Just because the cited people are not in ICE custody doesn't mean they at large in society, since the ICE list counts people who in fact are held in custody elsewhere -- making the Trump and Co.'s claims about the statistics bogus. Trump, Vance Wrong About ‘Illegal Immigrant Murderers’ September 30, 2024 ... In its statement, the Department of Homeland Security said data in Lechleitner’s letter had been “misinterpreted.” “The data goes back decades; it includes individuals who entered the country over the past 40 years or more, the vast majority of whose custody determination was made long before this Administration,” the statement said. “It also includes many who are under the jurisdiction or currently incarcerated by federal, state or local law enforcement partners.” ... Similarly, Michelle Mittelstadt, director of communications for the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute, told us that people have been on the non-detained docket “for decades.” “There is a lot of confusion around the non-detained docket,” including “who is on it and how long they’ve been on it,” Mittelstadt said in an email. “This docket has grown under multiple administrations, including the Trump one. Significant numbers of people on the docket have been on it for decades.” https://www.factcheck.org/2024/09/trump-vance-wrong-about-illegal-immigrant-murderers/

Why don't you try not continuing to repeat the same already debunked nonsense claims involving stats that don't represent what you and others have wrongly claimed them to represent: Fact check: To attack Harris, Trump falsely describes new stats on immigrants and homicide September 29, 2024 "Washington (CNN) — Former President Donald Trump is wildly distorting new statistics on immigration and crime to attack Vice President Kamala Harris. Trump falsely claimed Friday and Saturday that the statistics are specifically about criminal offenders who entered the US during the Biden-Harris administration; in reality, the figures are about offenders who entered the US over multiple decades, including during the Trump administration. And Trump falsely claimed that the statistics are specifically about people who are now living freely in the US; the figures actually include people who are currently in jails and prisons serving criminal sentences." [emphasis added] ... The statistics have been deployed by Trump and various Republican lawmakers and right-wing commentators as alarming evidence of Harris’ supposed mismanagement of immigration policy. But in addition to exaggerating her role on the file — she was never actually “border czar” — much of the chatter has inaccurately described what the statistics show. https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/29/politics/fact-check-trump-harris-immigrants-homicide/index.html

Regarding the above cited journal article from Japan, a couple of things to note: --first, as a general issue regarding the article, correlation does not translate into causation. Meaning, just because one thing happens to happen after something in time, it doesn't mean the first thing caused the second thing. For example, I could go get a vaccine, then walk outside, cross the street, and get hit and killed by a bus.... So did the vaccine cause my death? Certainly not. Same issue with the cases reported in the Japan article. But then, more specific to the details of above cited journal article: 1. the authors there report on the three aneurysm cases, but having read the entire article, nowhere in their report do they conclude or state that the three cases were CAUSED by the vaccinations. 2. In fact, what the authors actually wrote in the "Conclusion" section of their article was: "We have reported the cases of three women with intracranial aneurysm rupture shortly after undergoing BNT162b2 mRNA COVID-19 vaccination. Although we believe that the advantages of COVID-19 vaccination outweigh the risks, continuous pharmacovigilance is necessary to monitor for potentially fatal adverse events and identify any possible associations." [emphasis added} Then lastly, regarding the "possible associations" issue raised in the article, here's what the PolitiFact fact checking service reported a year after the Japan article was published: "There is no good evidence that the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines cause brain aneurysms," John Swartzberg, clinical professor emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley School of Public Health, told PolitiFact. "The claims to the contrary are not based upon any sound science or reasoning." [emphasis added] The CDC does not list brain aneurysms as a common side effect after COVID-19 vaccination in any age group. We found a March 2022 study that reported the cases of three women in Japan who had an intracranial aneurysm rupture within three days of getting an mRNA COVID-19 vaccine. But the study did not conclude that vaccines were the cause and the authors said the advantages of COVID-19 vaccination outweigh any risks." [emphasis added] https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2023/apr/25/instagram-posts/no-brain-aneurysms-are-not-a-common-side-effect-of/

Unsurprisingly, another opinion piece penned by a devoted Trump supporting author: "Trump wants to enact many outside-the-box ideas that could make our country work again. Let’s hope he gets the chance." Liz Peek is a former partner of major bracket Wall Street firm Wertheim and Company." https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/4901314-trump-second-term-priorities/ "Peek spent more than 20 years on Wall Street as a research analyst focused on the oil industry. ... She has written for The Fiscal Times, Fox News,[4] the New York Sun, The Wall Street Journal, Alternate Universe, the Motley Fool, and Women on the Web and has appeared on Fox Business with Neil Cavuto and Fox & Friends.[5]" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liz_Peek

All part of his plans, if elected, to basically turn the U.S. government into the equivalent of a third-world banana republic dictatorship where the rule of law doesn't exist, and all that matters is unquestioning fealty to the dictator.

Ask me if I'm surprised about the above report regarding the ever-Trump supporting/leaning Rasmussen operation. And needless to say I'm not. Just another part of the right-wing establishment that portrays themselves as "news" organizations or impartial pollsters when in fact they're merely pro-Trump propagandists.

Hard to say how little value or meaning I place in Boris Johnson's contrarian memoir musings on the COVID pandemic, especially considering he had always been a reluctant figure for the UK's on-again, off-again measures aimed at protecting the public from COVID, and ended up losing his job in part because of his hypocritical COVID-era misdeeds. In case anyone needs any reminders: "In the Partygate scandal it was found that numerous parties had been held at 10 Downing Street during national COVID-19 lockdowns, and COVID-19 social distancing laws were breached by 83 individuals, including Johnson, who in April 2022 was issued with a fixed penalty notice. The publishing of the Sue Gray report in May 2022 and a widespread sense of dissatisfaction led in June 2022 to a vote of confidence in his leadership amongst Conservative MPs, which he won. In July 2022, revelations over his appointment of Chris Pincher as deputy chief whip of the party while knowing of allegations of sexual misconduct against him led to a mass resignation of members of his government and to Johnson announcing his resignation as prime minister." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Johnson# Then as to the specifics of Johnson's dubious role in the COVID response: "The COVID-19 pandemic emerged as a serious crisis within the first few months of Johnson's second term.[414] Johnson's non-attendance of five COBR briefings during the early months and the failure of the UK government to prepare for and control the outbreak has been criticised.[415][416][417] The UK was among the last major[clarification needed] European states to close schools, ban public events and order a lockdown.[418][419] This response is thought by some scientists to have contributed to the UK's high death toll from COVID-19, which as of January 2021 was among the highest in the world.[420 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Johnson#COVID-19_pandemic "Johnson, who contracted the coronavirus himself, was blamed by many scientists for acting too slowly to stop the initial spread in the spring. As Reuters reported earlier this year, behind this tragedy lay a failure to spot the infection as it arrived, to stamp it out with an early lockdown and to implement effective tracing and isolation of cases, as pioneered in Asia and used to effect in Germany." ... Now, an investigation by Reuters has exposed how lessons from the first wave were not learned, and why England once again was forced into a drastic lockdown. New measures were put in place – a rapid increase in testing capacity, for example. But the government’s failure to share full data on the disease’s spread with local authorities and the public gave a false impression of success. This concealed what one health expert called an “iceberg” of infection and led to a relaxation of social restrictions too soon in some places." https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/health-coronavirus-britain-newwave/ Scientists turn on Boris Johnson over UK’s coronavirus response Top adviser says the country’s death toll could have been halved if it had gone into lockdown one week earlier. June 10, 2020 ... "The U.K. government is facing mounting criticism over its handling of the pandemic, specifically that lockdown measures were imposed too late, that testing and protective equipment for medical staff were not widely available quickly enough, and that the government failed to protect vulnerable residents of care homes." https://www.politico.eu/article/scientists-turn-on-boris-johnson-over-uks-coronavirus-response-covid-19/ And then to top it off, Johnson in the above Daily Telegraph sourced report channels Donald Trump in "his belief that Covid-19 likely originated from a laboratory leak in China, rather than from a wildlife market" -- which is contrary to what most researchers in the field are reported to believe, and contrary to what continuing scientific research has suggested, though the issue continues to be debated on both sides without a clear resolution. COVID pandemic started in Wuhan market animals after all, suggests latest study The finding comes from a reanalysis of genomic data. 20 September 2024 "The hunt for the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic has new leads. Researchers have identified half a dozen animal species that could have passed SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, to people, by reanalysing genomes collected from an animal market in Wuhan, China1. The study establishes the presence of animals and the virus at the market, although it does not confirm whether the animals themselves were infected with the virus. Many of the earliest cases of COVID-19 were linked to the city’s Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, and so it became a focus in the search for the pandemic’s origin. The study, published in Cell today, is the latest in a series of analyses of the market samples. The researchers argue that their reanalysis adds more weight to the market being the site of the first spillover events, in which animals with the virus infected people, sparking the pandemic. This expands on a preliminary analysis on a subset of the China CDC data, which the same team published in March 2023." https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-03026-9 Virologists and epidemiologists back natural origin for COVID-19, survey suggests First large scientific opinion poll about “lab leak” causes fresh furor on social media 6 Feb 2024 No scientific dispute has ever been resolved by an opinion poll, and plenty of famous researchers have been on the wrong side of scientific history. But a group of risk experts has found a new angle on one of the most hotly contested science issues of our time—where the SARS-CoV-2 virus behind the COVID-19 pandemic came from—by conducting what it calls the first systematic survey of scientific opinion on the matter. The report, posted online on Friday, suggests virologists and other scientists with relevant expertise favor the view that the pandemic began when a natural virus jumped from an animal to a human, not because of an accident in a research lab studying or manipulating coronaviruses. The survey, like every other morsel of information around the pandemic’s origin, triggered a fierce debate on social media, where the report was both praised as “an important global survey” and panned as a “fake study.” https://www.science.org/content/article/virologists-and-epidemiologists-back-natural-origin-covid-19-survey-suggests The OP report based on an article from the reliably COVID skeptic Daily Telegraph newspaper also includes the following dubious comment on the lab leak issue: "This theory, long championed by figures like Donald Trump, has gained more credibility over time, with the FBI recently stating that it believes the virus most likely originated in a Chinese government-controlled lab." Of course, what the same OP report here does NOT report is the following more meaningful contribution on the subject: US intelligence report on COVID-19 origins rejects some points raised by lab leak theory proponents June 24, 2023 "WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. officials released an intelligence report Friday that rejected some points raised by those who argue COVID-19 leaked from a Chinese lab, instead reiterating that American spy agencies remain divided over how the pandemic began. ... Four agencies still believe the virus was transferred from animals to humans, and two agencies — the Energy Department and the FBI — believe the virus leaked from a lab. The CIA and another agency have not made an assessment." [emphasis added] https://apnews.com/article/covid19-united-states-intelligence-china-23dcbde0be5638556739b564ece97027

From the nonprofit Brennan Center for Justice that focuses on voting rights issues: Noncitizen Voting Is Already Illegal — and Vanishingly Rare April 17, 2024 The Brennan Center is part of a broad coalition tracking election-related disinformation. A big rumor we’ve identified rattling around the murkier regions of social media is that hordes of noncitizens are voting. That’s false. A lie. An urban myth. But it has also, somehow, become the glue that’s holding together disparate wings of the Republican Party. ... In 2017, my colleagues Myrna Pérez (now a federal appeals court judge) and Douglas Keith conducted an exhaustive study of 42 jurisdictions in the 2016 general election. They found that “election officials in those places, who oversaw the tabulation of 23.5 million votes, referred only an estimated 30 incidents of suspected noncitizen voting for further investigation or prosecution. In other words, even suspected — not proven — noncitizen votes accounted for just 0.0001 percent of the votes cast.” [emphasis added] (more) https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/noncitizen-voting-already-illegal-and-vanishingly-rare

It's not just a question of a minor timing violation. It's also the fact, as alleged by the Justice Department, that the Republican sec. of state has been trying to remove U.S. born and naturalized citizens who are legally entitled to vote, as shown below: Justice Department Sues Alabama for Violating Federal Law’s Prohibition on Systematic Efforts to Remove Voters Within 90 Days of an Election Friday, September 27, 2024 The Justice Department announced today that it has filed a lawsuit against the State of Alabama and the Alabama Secretary of State to challenge a systematic State program aimed at removing voters from its election rolls too close to the Nov. 5 general election, in violation of the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA). ... On Aug. 13, the Secretary of State announced the launch of a “process to remove noncitizens registered to vote in Alabama.” This was 84 days before the Nov. 5 general election. The Justice Department’s review found that both native-born and naturalized U.S. citizens have received letters stating that their voter record has been made inactive and that they have been placed on a path for removal from Alabama’s statewide voter registration list. ... This systematic voter removal program, which the State is conducting within 90 days of the upcoming federal election, violates the Quiet Period Provision. [emphasis added] ... The Justice Department seeks injunctive relief that would restore the ability of impacted eligible voters to vote unimpeded on Election Day and would prohibit future Quiet Period violations. The department also seeks remedial mailings to educate eligible voters concerning the restoration of their rights and adequate training of local officials and poll workers to address confusion and distrust among eligible voters accused of being noncitizens. (more) https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-sues-alabama-violating-federal-laws-prohibition-systematic-efforts-remove DOJ sues Alabama, state's top election official for allegedly purging voters too close to election The law prohibits the removal of voters within 90 days of a federal election. September 29, 2024 The Department of Justice sued the State of Alabama and its top election official on Friday for allegedly removing voters from its election rolls too close to the November election. Last month, Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allen announced that he had begun inactivating the voter registrations of 3,251 people who had been previously issued noncitizen identification numbers. A Justice Department review of the purge also identified multiple native-born and naturalized citizens who were incorrectly identified as potential noncitizens during the voter purge. A coalition of voting rights groups separately sued Allen earlier this month over the move, alleging he illegally targeted and intimidated naturalized citizens. https://abcnews.go.com/US/doj-sues-alabama-election-official-allegedly-purging-voters/story?id=114317068 Bio on Republican Alabama Sec. of State Wes Allen: "Allen defeated Zeigler with the largest percentage margin of victory of any Republican primary race held in Alabama on that date, earning 64% of the votes cast." ... "He has promised that no election machine in Alabama will be connected to the internet under his watch. He has also strongly opposes ballot drop boxes and mass mail voting.[12]" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wes_Allen_(politician)

This 2017 article from the Arizona Republic also confirms that the non-detained, non-citizens count from ICE (however accurate or inaccurate that count may be) was already at 368,000+ back in 2016 prior to the Trump Administration. (As earlier cited and attributed to a separate Fox News report earlier in this thread). And that figure represents most of the 430,000+ figure in the recently cited ICE letter, meaning most on the list predated both Trump and Biden! "As of the end of August [2016], ICE was supervising about 2.2 million immigrants facing deportation who had been released after being detained, including 368,574 with criminal convictions, the report said." [emphasis added] But more tellingly, the same Republic report then goes on to cite an Inspector General report that explains how overworked agents basically often were unable to keep track of what changes were occurring with people on their list, making the stats somewhat suspect. "Because of overwhelming caseloads and inadequate oversight, overworked deportation officers told DHS inspectors that criminal-background checks were not always conducted when non-detained immigrants facing deportation arrived for routine check-ins with ICE. Other deportation officers reported they were sometimes unaware when undocumented immigrants facing deportation missed check-in appointments or missed court dates and sometimes lost track of the whereabouts of non-detained immigrants altogether." AND "The report "really illustrates that when ICE says that someone is under supervision that probably in most cases doesn’t mean much, that in fact ICE may have actually lost track of them or is failing to track them," she said." https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/immigration/2017/04/21/trump-wants-expand-deportations-but-report-finds-ice-already-falling-behind/100763018/

And now finally, we have an official fact check calling out Trump and Co. on their immigration lies and misrepresenting the ICE statistics that are the subject of this misleading thread, and confirming what I've already posted here above: Fact check: To attack Harris, Trump falsely describes new stats on immigrants and homicide September 29, 2024 "Washington (CNN) — Former President Donald Trump is wildly distorting new statistics on immigration and crime to attack Vice President Kamala Harris. Trump falsely claimed Friday and Saturday that the statistics are specifically about criminal offenders who entered the US during the Biden-Harris administration; in reality, the figures are about offenders who entered the US over multiple decades, including during the Trump administration. And Trump falsely claimed that the statistics are specifically about people who are now living freely in the US; the figures actually include people who are currently in jails and prisons serving criminal sentences." [emphasis added] ... The statistics have been deployed by Trump and various Republican lawmakers and right-wing commentators as alarming evidence of Harris’ supposed mismanagement of immigration policy. But in addition to exaggerating her role on the file — she was never actually “border czar” — much of the chatter has inaccurately described what the statistics show. https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/29/politics/fact-check-trump-harris-immigrants-homicide/index.html

The ICE document that's the subject of this thread makes absolutely NO reference to what periods of time, or what presidential administrations, are reflected in their statistics. Entirely apart from how HHS has now clarified that the stats cover many past decades of reporting. But misinformation peddlers are trying to blame the whole thing on Biden and Harris, when in fact there's no evidence to actually support that. And even Fox's own reporting as posted earlier in this thread acknowledges that most of the 430,000+ non-detained prior criminal history cases cited in the recent ICE report stemmed from 2016 and before. "in August 2016, toward the end of the Obama administration, ICE said there were about 2.2 million noncitizens on the non-detained docket and about 368,574 were convicted criminals." [emphasis added] https://www.yahoo.com/news/white-house-mum-amid-outrage-001642921.html So most of the criminal history stats being reported lately by ICE -- however accurate or inaccurate they may be) appear to predate BOTH the Trump and Biden administrations.

And you think the MS gang only magically showed up in the U.S. under the Biden-Harris administration? Fraid not! Why Trump Talked About MS-13 Gang Violence in His State of the Union January 31, 2018 ... The uptick in violence has sparked a crackdown against MS-13 on Long Island, with the local police teaming up with federal law enforcement to take on the gang. Seventeen adult members and associates of MS-13 are facing charges in federal court on Long Island, including four members of the Westside Sailors clique who allegedly killed Cuevas and Mickens. Since the spring, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has arrested around 400 suspected gang members as part of the crackdown. However, the effort has also led to the unlawful detention of minors, including 26 teenagers who were held on charges of “gang affiliation,” but released in the past few months following a class-action lawsuit filed by the ACLU. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/why-trump-talked-about-ms-13-gang-violence-in-his-state-of-the-union/ Trump had a chance earlier this year to have Congress pass a bipartisan immigration bill that would have added new funding for more immigration officers, expand detention facilities and toughen various other immigration provisions. The legislation was supported by the border patrol officers union. And Trump had it killed. "The bill was also supported by several groups that typically align with Republicans, such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Wall Street Journal editorial board. The National Border Patrol Council, a union that represents about 18,000 border patrol agents, also endorsed the bill." https://www.factcheck.org/2024/02/unraveling-misinformation-about-bipartisan-immigration-bill/

Then believe what CBP (Customs and Border Protection) reports below: Here's a different set of stats on the CBP website that DOES call out their criminal convictions history data on arrests involving non-citizens by individual recent years, and also by type of prior criminal conviction among the people they have arrested. And it paints a drastically different picture, with prior illegal entry convictions making up the largest criminal history share involving of their recent year arrests. Criminal Noncitizen Statistics "The following is a summary of U.S. Border Patrol enforcement actions related to arrests of criminal noncitizens for Fiscal Years 2017 - 2024. Records checks of available law enforcement databases following the apprehension of an individual may reveal a history of criminal conviction(s). That conviction information is recorded in a U.S. Customs and Border Protection database, from which the data below is derived." Yellow highlights below added for emphasis: https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/cbp-enforcement-statistics/criminal-noncitizen-statistics By way of background: "ICE and CBP are both components of the Department of Homeland Security; CBP enforces customs and immigration law at and near the border and ICE enforces customs and immigration laws at the border as well as in the interior of the United States. CBP is charged with keeping terrorists and their weapons out of the U.S. while facilitating lawful international travel and trade. ICE is responsible for protecting the United States from the cross-border crime and illegal immigration that threaten national security and public safety." https://www.ice.gov/careers/faqs

Except according to a Department of Homeland Security statement reported today in Fox News, the cited stats from the ICE report are an aggregation of data going back over 40+ years! And a lot of uncertainty over just how current/accurate the stats are for now, given that ICE seemingly doesn't always get updated when there's a status change. "In a statement on Saturday, DHS said the data was being "misinterpreted." "The data goes back decades; it includes individuals who entered the country over the past 40 years or more, the vast majority of whose custody determination was made long before this Administration," a spokesperson said. "It also includes many who are under the jurisdiction or currently incarcerated by federal, state or local law enforcement partners." [emphasis added] https://www.yahoo.com/news/white-house-mum-amid-outrage-001642921.html

The same article from the BBC also includes another nugget that shoots down Trump and Co.'s attempt to place the blame on this entire immigration policy issue on Biden and Harris: "The US Department of Homeland Security has estimated there were 11 million illegal migrants living in the US as of January 2022. It says about a fifth of them arrived in 2010 or later but the majority arrived before this time, some as early as the 1980s." [emphasis added] That's a lot of prior presidents and congresses who have their fingers in this pie. And yet it was primarily the current Republicans and Trump who earlier this year killed the bipartisan immigration legislation that would have been the biggest legislative fix in decades aimed at improving the current immigration situation. But Trump and Co. had no interest in fixing or improving the immigration problem. They just wanted a bogus campaign issue decades in the making that they could try to falsely pin on Biden and Harris. The failed Immigration legislation because of Trump and Co. Unraveling Misinformation About Bipartisan Immigration Bill Posted on February 8, 2024 "The $118 billion bill, called the Emergency National Security Supplemental Appropriations Act, sought significant changes in border policy. It included money to build more border barriers, to greatly expand detention facilities, and to hire more Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol agents, asylum officers and immigration judges to reduce the years-long backlog in cases to determine asylum eligibility. It sought to expedite the asylum process, essentially ending — in most cases — the so-called “catch and release” policy whereby migrants are released into the U.S. pending asylum hearings. And it would have increased the standard of evidence needed to win asylum status." ... Trump and other Republicans have also said the bill would have permitted up to 5,000 illegal entries per day, but that’s not accurate either. ... “It’s not that the first 5,000 [migrants encountered at the border] are released, that’s ridiculous,” Lankford said on the Senate floor. “The first 5,000 we detain, we screen and then we deport. If we get above 5,000, we just detain and deport.” https://www.factcheck.org/2024/02/unraveling-misinformation-about-bipartisan-immigration-bill/

What you somewhat disingenuously failed to note in your quoted excerpt above regarding 2016 statistics was the two sentences that immediately preceded it, which I'd have to assume you saw: "The [Obama] enforcement priorities and policies, which evolved over the years, represented a significant departure from those of the Bush and Clinton administrations. As detailed below, the Obama-era policies represented the culmination of a gradual but consistent effort to narrow its enforcement focus to two key groups: The deportation of criminals and recent unauthorized border crossers." If an administration starts out with the premise that "criminals" are one of only two groups that they're going to target for deportation, then it's hardly surprising that a certain share (90% of the leftover 15% share, meaning less than 15% overall) not involving recent crossers in fact involved criminals. But that hardly makes that kind of data from back in 2016 somehow representative of the broader, larger undocumented immigrant population or the totality of border crossers. However, the BBC above (Sept.28) gave more current data that's probably more meaningful and representative of reality: "Of the 1.5 million apprehensions of people crossing the border illegally so far this financial year - and where Border Patrol was able to check against law enforcement databases - about 15,608 were of people with previous criminal convictions. The most common conviction was for illegal entry into another country (9,545), followed by driving under the influence (2,577), and drug possession and trafficking offences (1,414)." https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0jp4xqx2z3o By my math, that works out to about a 1% rate of prior criminal convictions based on the above numbers, with the largest number being illegal entry into another country (which would hardly be surprising given the population involved here). Not quite the ginned up, fake immigrant crime wave that Trump and Co. and trying to sell....

This thread, and the ways in which the underlying report from ICE has been misrepresented, is a good illustration of the saying popularized by Mark Twain: ""Lies, damned lies, and statistics" "Lies, damned lies, and statistics" is a phrase describing the persuasive power of statistics to bolster weak arguments, "one of the best, and best-known" critiques of applied statistics.[2] It is also sometimes colloquially used to doubt statistics used to prove an opponent's point. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lies,_damned_lies,_and_statistics

What it is is Trump and Co. abusing and misrepresenting statistics to paint a false picture and falsely attribute blame to Biden and Harris for the ICE data, as explained in the following Fox News report: "In a statement on Saturday, DHS said the data was being "misinterpreted." "The data goes back decades; it includes individuals who entered the country over the past 40 years or more, the vast majority of whose custody determination was made long before this Administration," a spokesperson said. "It also includes many who are under the jurisdiction or currently incarcerated by federal, state or local law enforcement partners." [emphasis added] https://www.yahoo.com/news/white-house-mum-amid-outrage-001642921.html AND Using the data in the above Fox News report, as I posted above: The ICE count of undocumented individuals with supposed non-detained criminal conviction histories already was 368,574 before Trump and Biden ever took office, and only grew by almost 57,000 (about 15%) during the entire eight years of the Trump and Biden administrations to the newly reported figure of 425,431, with no breakdown of how many were added during either of those two presidents. Thus, Trump and related Republicans who have long histories of demonizing documented and undocumented immigrants will try to paint the ICE report numbers as somehow the fault of Biden and Harris, and that the crime situation has been spiraling out of control -- when in fact, the ICE report and its recap of 40+ years of stats does and says nothing of the kind. https://aseannow.com/topic/1339308-tens-of-thousands-of-illegal-immigrants-with-sexual-assault-murder-convictions-roaming-us/?do=findComment&comment=19268600

Not quite that simple: "On January 5, 2023, the Biden administration announced its intent to provide “safe and orderly pathways to the United States” for up to 30,000 nationals of Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela. The new program, formally known as the Processes for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans (CHNV), allows certain people from these four countries who have a sponsor in the U.S. and who pass a background check to come to the U.S. for a period of two years to live and work lawfully, using a legal mechanism known as “humanitarian parole.” The creation of this new parole program, however, was coupled with restricted access to asylum at the U.S./Mexico border for migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela. Starting in January 2023, the government of Mexico agreed to allow the U.S. to expel up to 30,000 migrants from those countries to Mexico each month—preventing them from requesting asylum under U.S. immigration law. With the expiration of the Title 42 order in May 2023, the U.S. announced that it would formally deport some migrants from these countries to Mexico instead of to their home countries. ... With the expansion of the program to Cubans, Haitians, and Nicaraguans on January 9, 30,000 monthly slots are available in total, across all four countries." https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/research/biden-administrations-humanitarian-parole-program-cubans-haitians-nicaraguans-and

One that allows inveterate liars like Trump and Vance to run for public office....

Actually that's an intentional misstatement (lie) Trump has repeatedly made, most recently when he kept referring to LEGALLY permitted Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio as "illegals" A few examples among many: "Do you denounce the bomb threats in Springfield?” a reporter asked Trump on 14 September. “I don’t know what happened with the bomb threats,” Trump lied. “I know that it’s been taken over by illegal migrants, and that’s a terrible thing that happened.” ... “These are people that aren’t legally in our country. This is an invasion of our country.” AND "The next day, at a rally in Arizona, Trump conflated his lie about “eating pets” with his lurid stories about migrant murders. ... You have this small little community. All of a sudden you have 20,000 illegals in your community. Nobody knows where they come from." https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/sep/20/trump-vance-springfield-immigrants-avoid-abortion As for the Haitians legal status, the city of Springfield has a FAQ webpage that answers that question: "Q: Are the immigrants here legally and how did they qualify? A: YES, Haitian immigrants are here legally, under the Immigration Parole Program. Once here, immigrants are then eligible to apply for Temporary Protected Status (TPS). Haiti is designated by the Secretary of Homeland Security for TPS. Current TPS is granted through February 3, 2026." https://springfieldohio.gov/immigration-faqs/

Some added useful context from the BBC: "Of the 1.5 million apprehensions of people crossing the border illegally so far this financial year - and where Border Patrol was able to check against law enforcement databases - about 15,608 were of people with previous criminal convictions. The most common conviction was for illegal entry into another country (9,545), followed by driving under the influence (2,577), and drug possession and trafficking offences (1,414)." https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0jp4xqx2z3o By my math, that works out to about a 1% rate of prior criminal convictions based on the above numbers, with the largest number being illegal entry into another country (which would hardly be surprising given the population involved here). Not quite the immigrant crime wave Trump and related Republicans are trying to gin up..... Meanwhile, as for Trump's bogus claims: "He [Trump] has repeatedly criticised the government's record on the border, saying "Kamala Harris has allowed 21 million illegals to pour in from all over the world." ... These encounters have risen to record highs under the Biden administration but not to the level Trump - who has not provided a source for his claim - maintains." [emphasis added]. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0jp4xqx2z3o The guy just makes stuff up as he goes along, and rarely seems to have any basis in facts or reality. However, it does seem like there are an awful lot of immigrant haters out there, in the U.S. and elsewhere, which is particularly sad given that pretty much EVERYONE who lives in the U.S. (apart from Native Americans) has their familial roots as immigrants at some point in time.

I used to work in government for many years, and must say, I'm baffled at how ICE handled the release of this data to the requesting congressman. Absolutely no problem with the data being provided. Government agencies need to be responsive to congressional oversight. But to put out such a document so entirely lacking in context and perspective as to what the data really means, and what periods of time the data in fact covers, simply is IRRESPONSIBLE. Anyone with half a brain in Washington D.C. politics would have to know that Trump and the related Republicans would likely use and abuse the data given any opportunity, as has been their custom in the past when it comes to immigration issues. Unless it was an attempt on the part of the acting ICE director under whose name the report was issued [Patrick J. Lechleitner, Deputy Director and Senior Official Performing the Duties of the Director] to play blatant pre-election politics.