june 7 2013151 the federal government has reached a point now where virtually no one is being deported except those convicted of serious crimes thats what sen jeff sessions rala said on friday during the opening debate over an immigration reform bill in the senate and its 100 percent not true the raw statistics tell a much different story here are some i touched on back in january 16 million the record number of deportations under obama during his first four years in office on average obama deported 32886 per month according to an august article by polifact that rate is much higher than that of his predecessors george w bush deported a monthly average of 20964 and clinton deported 9059 in 2012 us customs and immigration enforcement deported 409849 people thats basically a city the size of oakland or miami and its double the population of montgomery alabama the capital city in sessions home state and the majority of people being deported are not serious criminals according to 2011 deportation stats from us customs and immigration enforcement ice i featured these numbers in february story of the 396906 removals by ice in the 2011 fiscal year 45 percent were noncriminal and 24 percent were for misdemeanors what ice calls level 3 crimes that means that 69 percent of the agencys deportations were of noncriminals or lowlevel offenders those werent the only claims the senator made during the first day of debate over immigration reform he believes the bill crafted by a group of four republicans and four democrats gives an easy path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants without investing adequate resources in border security the friday floor debate felt much like a continuation of may committee hearings over the bill where sessions went to great lengths to show his opposition to the legislation during those hearings the senator was more of an outlier and the legislation passed through committee with twothirds of the senators in favor now that the bill is on the senate floor sessions will try to galvanize resistance within his party the legislation will likely only need a handful of republican votes to overcome a potential filibuster but sponsors say they want robust support so that the immigration bill will have a better chance in the republicancontrolled house the goal is to get 70 members of the 100person senate to vote for the bill from sessions perspective the question may be less whether he can stop the legislation from passing in the senate and more whether he can temper a rush of republican support that would give it muchneeded momentum in the house to do that he seems prepared to lean on a few themes including immigration enforcement his message is that the obama administration isnt doing its job sessions and other opponents of the immigration bill have argued that the administrations deportation statistics are misleading they say that individuals who are removed at the border are lumped into the same category as