President Donald Trump, the man who launched his presidential campaign by declaring Mexicans were rapists and who promised to deport millions of them in his first year in office, has come up short.
Deportations from the U.S. to Mexico this year dropped 26 percent compared to the same period last year, when President Barack Obama was in office.
Between January and October 2017, the U.S. deported 151,647 people to Mexico, according to data from Mexico’s national population office that were first reported by Mexican news outlet Milenio.
About 205,000 people got deported to Mexico in the first 11 months of 2016, according to Bloomberg.
Bloomberg also reports that the drop in deportations numbers may be a result of a drop in illegal crossings at the southern border:
An ICE report of data through early October showed that removals of Mexican nationals were down, but administrative arrests of all immigrants were up 30 percent in fiscal year 2017. It concludes that the decrease in removal numbers overall compared to fiscal year 2016 was primarily due to about 17 percent fewer migrants apprehended at the border.
But President Trump’s deportations can still go up in the coming years—he inherited a deportation machine that we already know can deport a lot more people.