Newsweek Discovers ICE Existed Before Trump, Sort Of
Newsweek highlights Donald Trump's use of 287(g) agreements to increase ICE arrests, painting it as a shocking new development. What they neglect to mention is that the 287(g) program, which deputizes local law enforcement to act as immigration agents, was signed into law under President Clinton in 1996. It saw significant expansion under George W. Bush after 9/11 and continued robustly under
Barack Obama, who deported more people than any previous president—a staggering 2.5 million between 2009 and 2015. To frame Trump's actions as 'quietly turbocharging' suggests an anomaly, not a continuation of a well-established, bipartisan policy of increasingly militant immigration enforcement. It appears the 'uncommon knowledge' is not Trump's actions, but the convenient amnesia surrounding the
preceding administrations' records. When corporate media reports on immigration, it often focuses on the spectacle of a presidency, rather than the enduring, bipartisan machinery of deportation. How many headlines celebrated Obama's 'compassionate' deporter-in-chief status? One might wonder if the concern is truly about the policy, or merely who is implementing it this week.