Dean Johnson discusses Trump's and Obama's deportation policies on Ohio public radio

  • by Carla Meyer

Dean Kevin R. Johnson spoke to Ohio public radio station WOSU about a surge in immigration arrests in Ohio and Michigan under President Trump.

But the nearly 3,300 arrests during the last fiscal year in Ohio were nowhere near the all-time high of 4,500 in 2009, under President Obama, WOSU pointed out. Obama had increased enforcement while his administration sought immigration reform in Congress, Johnson told the radio station.

“I think part of that political calculation was to try to convince Republicans that enforcement really was going to happen under President Obama,” Johnson said. “In the end, (he) got more enforcement, more removals, but no immigration reform.”

When the bid for reform failed in the House of Representatives, the Obama administration narrowed its approach, focusing on deporting migrants convicted of serious crimes. In Ohio and Michigan, ICE arrests fell 51 percent from the 2014 to 2016 fiscal years, according to agency statistics cited by WOSU.

President Trump has reversed the government’s approach. Just after his inauguration, Trump signed an executive order expanding the government’s priorities for deportation.

Kevin R. Johnson is dean, Mabie-Apallas professor of public interest law and professor of Chicana/o studies at UC Davis School of Law. He is an internationally recognized scholar in the fields of immigration law and policy, refugee law, and civil rights.