so you don't understand the difference between a Return and a Removal when it comes to Immigration.
Return doesn't mean they left on their OWN FYI
These days, the term “removal” includes everything that used to be considered a deportation or exclusion.
"Returns," meanwhile, are a very specific immigration enforcement action. According to Theresa Brown of the Bipartisan Policy Center, returns refer to Canadians or Mexicans who were trying to enter illegally and were apprehended at their own border. These people, instead of being formally placed into proceedings, are simply turned around and prevented from entering the United States.
Currently, the federal government uses two different terms for when it apprehends an unauthorized immigrant and expels him or her from the country. There are “removals,” which involve a formal court order. And then there are “returns,” which do not
1) ‘Deportation’ is no longer an official legal term
“Deportation” was an official legal term before 1996 — any time the government removed someone from inside the country who was in the US unlawfully, that was considered a deportation.
IN 1996, AN 'ORDER OF DEPORTATION' BECAME AN 'ORDER OF REMOVAL'
There were also “exclusions,” which was the term for denying entrance to someone who was trying to get in.
In 1996, both of these processes got rolled into a single process called "removals." Likewise, a formal "order of deportation" became an "order of removal."
But in the immigration debate, people kept talking about “deportations” — a term that didn’t have an official legal meaning anymore, and so could be used to refer to different things.
2) ‘Removal’ and ‘return’ have become the main terms in immigration enforcement over the last decade
These days, the term “removal” includes everything that used to be considered a deportation or exclusion.
"Returns," meanwhile, are a very specific immigration enforcement action. According to Theresa Brown of the Bipartisan Policy Center, returns refer to Canadians or Mexicans who were trying to enter illegally and were apprehended at their own border. These people, instead of being formally placed into proceedings, are simply turned around and prevented from entering the United States. (
Before 2006, this was known as a "voluntary departure.")
Changing the terms has made it difficult to track immigration statistics over time. So, in recent years, the government's Office of Immigration Statistics has put out
tables showing the number of "returns" and "removals" going back to 1927 — reinterpreting old historical data with the new terminology.
3) Removals have much harsher consequences than returns
PEOPLE WHO ARE RETURNED ARE NOT SUBJECT TO FORMAL CONSEQUENCES
Unauthorized immigrants who are removed from the country are
ineligible to apply to re-enter legally for a period of years. If they try to come back to the US illegally and succeed (as of 1996) their removal order is
"reinstated" and they can be deported again without another trial.
People who are returned, by contrast, are not subject to formal consequences — they can turn back around and try again, or they can apply to re-enter the country legally.
4) Bush had more returns than Obama, Obama had more removals
Over the course of eight years, the George W. Bush administration oversaw 8.3 million
returns and 2 million removals.
In the three years between fiscal year 2009 and 2012, most of which was under Obama, there were 1.6 million returns and 1.6 million removals. The Obama administration, from February 2009 to the present,
has removed more than 2 million people.
WHEN DISCUSSING THEIR RECORDS, BUSH and OBAMA USE DIFFERENT STATS
So the combined removals and returns under Bush are much higher than under Obama. But Obama will pass Bush’s removals by the end of this year.
The administrations have added to the confusion by emphasizing different statistics. The Bush administration appears to have counted both
removals and returns when discussing its immigration enforcement (but doesn't appear to have called them both "deportations"). The Obama administration, by contrast, has counted only removals.
5) The Bush administration started the trend of putting a heavier emphasis on removals
During the Bush administration, the thriving economy drew a lot of unauthorized migration. Many of these people were apprehended at the border. Still, many slipped through and
the unauthorized population grew significantly.
CRITICS CALLED RETURNS "CATCH-AND-RELEASE" — SO BUSH RAMPED UP REMOVALS
At the time, many critics derided the Bush administration's returns as a
"catch-and-
release" system — the administration was turning away people at the border who would then come back and try again.
So, in response, the Bush administration decided to ramp up the number of formal orders of removal (and criminal charges) for people who would previously have been returned, says Theresa Brown of the Bipartisan Policy Center, who was a Customs and Border Protection and Department of Homeland Security official at the time.
Bush officials figured that relying more heavily on removals would deter people from repeatedly trying to cross the border. This system has persisted under Obama, and is now part of what's called the
Consequence Delivery System.
5) Obama has continued to prioritize removals, while having fewer people to return
The Obama administration continued the strategic shift toward removals that began under Bush. That’s why Obama is on pace to eclipse Bush’s removal totals.
UNDER OBAMA, FEWER PEOPLE ARE TRYING TO enter IN THE FIRST PLACE
At the same time, returns have dropped under Obama. One reason: fewer people were trying to get into the country in the first place. Due to the recession, the number of immigrants trying to cross illegally
dropped substantially. As a result, Border Patrol agents were
apprehending many fewer people, meaning there were fewer people they could return.
Furthermore, more and more of the people the Obama administration was apprehending, says Brown, were people crossing from Mexico who weren’t
from Mexico. Those people couldn’t be returned either — “returns” can only be used for Mexicans on the southern border (and Canadians on the northern one). And due to the Consequence Delivery System, the administration preferred to remove people rather than return them. “That combination of factors,” says Brown, “meant that the number of returns has gone down at the same time the number of removals has gone up.”
www.migrationpolicy.org
