The Trump Administration is reportedly seeking to deport thousands of immigrants who were arrested or convicted of a crime, even though judges had previously closed their cases.
Buzzfeed reports that new numbers from the Department of Justice’s Executive Office for Immigration Review show Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) lawyers have tried to reactivate almost 8,000 deportation cases. There were nearly 8,400 requests over the last fiscal year, according to the news outlet, a third of which was still under the Obama administration.
The data show that the Trump administration is seeking to reopen cases at almost double the rate of the Obama administration, according to the news outlet, which noted that the government made 3,551 and 4,847 requests, respectively during the last two years of the Obama administration.
{mosads}ICE said Wednesday that it was reviewing cases for individuals who had since been convicted of or arrested for a crime. It will reopen those it finds to be no longer low priority, Buzzfeed added.
President Trump promised a crackdown on immigration while a candidate, and Attorney General Jeff Sessions ruled in May that immigration judges could not administratively close cases.
The latest Gallup poll, released Thursday, showed that the president has a 38 percent approval rating for his administration’s handling of immigration.
Views on the administration’s immigration policies were heavily divided along partisan lines. Eighty-one percent of Republicans approve of his handling of the issue, while 93 percent of Democrats disapprove.
Republican dissatisfaction with immigration policies has declined from its peak of 86 percent in 2016, Gallup noted, adding that dissatisfaction on the topic among Democrats has been on the rise from a low of 34 percent in 2017.
Former President Obama’s approval rating on immigration fell as low as 31 percent in 2014, according to Gallup.