Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on immigration: what the evidence says · JRE #2461
SUBJECT: IMMIGRATION
Not a true/false call. Every claim is logged with its sources; read the exhibits below.
I did look at a chart recently because I thought it was fascinating. The number of American citizens that were arrested what percentage during what Obama did versus during Trump. It's actually, I think, higher. More American citizens were arrested during this Obama thing.
What the evidence says 01 / RECORD
Kennedy cited an unnamed chart to claim more American citizens were arrested during immigration enforcement under Obama than under Trump, but did not identify the chart's source, methodology, or time frame, and no chart or dataset specifically measuring U.S. citizen arrests by administration has been located. Published government and independent data instead track total deportations and the criminal-record status of non-citizens arrested by ICE, not arrests of American citizens. On the closely related and often-conflated claim that Obama removed more people overall than Trump, PolitiFact rated a similar comparison "True": DHS data show roughly 3.2 million removals and returns in Obama's first term and 2.1 million in his second, versus about 2 million under Trump's first term. Separately, FactCheck.org and NPR reported that under Trump's second term, the share of ICE arrestees with no U.S. criminal record rose sharply, from about 22% early in the term to over 40% by January, a trend that runs counter to Kennedy's framing that non-criminals were targeted more heavily under Obama. No dataset was found that isolates "American citizens" arrested by immigration authorities under either administration, so the specific claim as stated remains unsupported by available evidence.