Only 1 out of every 4 deportation cases in America involves Mexicans

Paging Donald Trump: A large majority of immigrants whom the U.S. is trying to deport aren’t Mexican.

Only 25% of the deportation cases filed in fiscal year 2016 (October 2015 through the present) have been against Mexican citizens, according to a report this week from Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse. The absolute number of Mexicans facing deportation so far this year is also down, to 15,821.

Other than Mexicans, 23% of the immigrants facing deportation were from El Salvador, 17% were from Guatemala, 12% were from Honduras, and 3% were from China.

The data includes all cases in which the Department of Homeland Security filed a deportation request in immigration court, but not immigrants who were apprehended near the border or who had a prior removal order reinstated.

The number of Mexicans facing deportation from the U.S. has declined sharply since the 2009 peak, when more than 120,000 were charged with deportation.

The data should serve as a wake-up call to politicians like Trump who claim that Mexicans are illegally flooding into the country. In fact, more Mexicans are leaving the U.S. than coming here.

“This shows that the stereotypical view is not necessarily representative of what’s going on right now,” Susan Long, a Syracuse professor and the TRAC director, told me. The drop in Mexicans being deported, she said, “has certainly been a long-term trend.”

The report also show the growing percentages of Central American immigrants among those facing deportation. Many of these are women with children or unaccompanied minors who are applying for asylum in immigration court—and large percentages don’t have legal representation.

Casey Tolan is a National News Reporter for Fusion based in New York City.