Editor’s note: This Speakout was submitted by Bernie Hendricks of Brookings.
Rev. Carl Kline’s hyper-partisan homilies on the topic of illegal immigration date back to last October when he fumed about the “Gestapo-like tactics ICE increasingly uses” (10-14-25), and later chortled, “It’s been a treat to see” costumed-protesters at “ICE detention sites across the U.S.… facing off against police and national guard troops” (10-21-25). His Veterans’ Day column in November served, puzzlingly, as a platform to further sanctify his “intense feelings of contempt” toward ICE agents (11-11-25).
Republicans of every race and creed have long welcomed emigrees into the U.S., specifically those who enter our country legally, respect our laws, and come to make America a better, stronger, and safer nation for all. Tens of millions of immigrants have indeed played by the rules, entered legally, and gone on to earn full legal standing and citizenship. They serve honorably in the U.S. Armed forces and provide critical workforce services throughout America’s civilian sector.
Rev. Carl Kline’s diatribes, meanwhile, have been ignoring the historical record of immigration enforcement carried out during the Obama (2009-2016) and Biden (2021-2024) terms regarding the very deportation practices he now condemns.
Where was Rev. Kline’s self-righteous indignation during the Obama-Biden 2009-2016 ICE deployments/deportation of illegal immigrants?
POLITIFACT correspondent Miriam Valverde, Oct 21, 2016, summarized the official deportation record from that period:
2010: The Washington Post reported that “the Obama administration is deporting record numbers of illegal immigrants.”
2012: NPR reported that the Obama administration “deported a record 1.5 million” in his first term.
2014: An analysis by The New York Times found that since Obama became president, “two-thirds of the nearly two million deportation cases involve people who had committed minor infractions, including traffic violations, or had no criminal record at all.”
2016: The New York Times reported in June that Obama “has carried out many more deportations than previous presidents, setting a record of more than 2.4 million formal removals.”
Even immigration advocates have called out Obama for his deportation record, “challenging his campaign promise to provide a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants,” with Obama being crowned “Deporter-in-Chief” in 2014 by Janet Murgula, president of the National Council of La Raza, an immigrant advocacy group.
Meanwhile, in the final two years of the Obama presidency, 2015 and 2016, “ICE recorded 263 mistaken arrests, 54 mistaken detentions (book-ins), and four mistaken removals” (Crime Prevention Research Center, 1-22-26).
During 2015-2016, “ICE made a mere 239,645 arrests, meaning the 54 mistaken detentions alone produced an Obama error rate of 0.0225% — about one mistake for every 4,444 arrests….”
Furthermore, over the course of Obama-Biden administration, 2009-2016, “56 individuals died in ICE custody…. Roughly one death for every 14,314 detainees.”
Finally, “ICE under Obama deported two US citizens in fiscal year 2015, and two more in fiscal year 2016.”
What did Rev. Kline have to say in his columns about the Obama-Biden 2009-2017 deportation parade and the death rates of their detainees?
Answer: Not a peep.
Kline has publicly blasted ICE detentions under DHS Sec. Kristi Noem as “racist” (Brookings Register 7-28-25), but had no concerns whatsoever about Biden’s Latin American deportation record.
According to the Migration Policy Institute, Feb 2025: “Historically, Mexicans and northern Central Americans (Salvadorans, Guatemalans, and Hondurans) have comprised the vast majority of all removals.” During the FY 2021-24 Biden administration, “these nationalities represented 87 percent of all interior deportations—Mexicans accounting for 63 percent and northern Central Americans another 24 percent. This trend has held for decades.”
Did Rev. Kline ever rail against Biden’s “removal” policy targeting this “vast majority” of people of color? Answer: No.
Furthermore, during Biden’s third year in office, “U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement deported more than 142,000 immigrants.” Of those, “72,000 non-criminals were deported from the United States in fiscal 2023” (Washington Post, 12-29-23). “Nearly 18,000 of those deported were parents and children traveling as family units, surpassing the 14,400 removed under the Trump administration in fiscal 2020.”
Where were the protests by Rev. Kline and his followers during 2023 when President Biden was deporting “72,000 non-criminals” and 18,000 “parents and children traveling as family units?”
During Biden’s final year in office, there were “236,000 removals (through Aug 2024), “80% of which were non-criminal – meaning they did not have a criminal conviction” (USA Facts, Source: Department of Homeland Security). During all of 2024, “non-criminal removals” were 400% higher than “criminal removals.”
What did Rev. Kline have to say about this gross disparity? Not a peep.
Finally, The UCLA Center for Immigration Law and Policy issued a “damning report” (“No Fair Day,” 12-13-23) against the Biden Administration that detailed “grave injustices for children facing immigration court proceedings in the United States, and resulted in tens of thousands of children ordered deported, most without legal representation or a fair day in court.” Immigration courts under the Biden administration “ordered more than 13,000 unaccompanied children removed in absentia between Fiscal Years 2022 and 2023.”
Rev. Kline has never once acknowledged his beloved Democrat party’s complicity in any of these injustices – another prime example of the unadulterated, barefaced hypocrisy which permeates Democrat social justice propaganda campaigns.
Two thousand years ago, Christ admonished the religious pretenders of that age: “Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye” (Matthew 7:5).
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