No actually the 2.5 million doesn't include turn-aways or self-deportation which both add to the final number.

okay then, I'll have another look at the sources. thanks

Looked into it some more. Mexican adults who are turned away at the border are not counted. Adults and children from other countries are put through removal proceedings, and that counts. Sometimes those proceedings take a few days to weeks, but it still counts. The point is that the policy of what counts and what doesn't had changed under Obama.

If it did change, I don't think that minor point disputes the deportation trend under Obama. What percentage of overseas immigrants take this risky (and expensive) route of arriving at a US border without a visa or some other immigration arrangements? Probably not a huge percentage. Vast majority of immigrants to US are still from Mexico so I doubt the numbers would be skewed significantly enough for it not to be comparable to previous presidents.

Here are some number showing ONLY interior removals: https://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/wp-content/uplo...

But yes border removals also jumped as well.. Maybe there is already a wall there? Here is a breakdown of deportations by three categories (border, interior and unknown) https://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/wp-content/uplo...

Certainly much of this is due to better tracking (dimishing of the unknown category), tighter enforcement, and more efficiency, but none of those arguments dispute the trend of higher deportations under Obama simply because it doesn't fit the overall narrative of Obama as a "compassionate" president.

So why did people act shocked when Trump said he was gonna deport all of them? If we can deport 2.5 million without anyone really noticing, surely deporting eleven million is only five times harder and thus perfectly achievable?

They act shocked because they don't genuinely care about people being deported, families being ripped apart, providing support for displaced people, or just in general not displacing people in the first place with wars and disastrous economic manipulations half way across the world.

They are only paid to care about it or even be aware of it if it suits the needs of their designated group of oligarchs.

FYI, on the campaign trail, Trump cited the 30million+ number of illegal immigrants (a number advocated by Ann Coulter). Official US government numbers settled somewhere near 11 million (largely based on census numbers, so likely underreported).

Coulter citation:

https://twitter.com/AnnCoulter/status/771162318994563072

This was something he let go of because it wasn't popular. I've watched many of his rallies and don't recall hearing this line. A few of his lines were so unpopular he let them go.

Citation for those wondering:

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-obama-deportations-20140...