Immigration Advocate Lawyer says Trump did more for Child Refugees in 2 weeks than Obama in 2 years

According to immigration attorney Matthew Kolken, the Trump administration has “done more” to help unaccompanied refugee children in two weeks than former President Obama ever did.
“President Trump in two weeks has already done more for unaccompanied refugee children than Obama did in two years,” Kolken told the Daily Mail. After taking office, Trump issued a memorandum to the Justice Department effectively ending the Obama-era practice of prioritizing unaccompanied children for deportation.

“Maybe the president has a heart when it comes to unaccompanied children. There’s no other explanation,” he said.

Calling for a reexamination of Trump’s immigration policy, Kolken described Democrats as possessing an “unbridled hypocrisy” in their criticisms of Trump.

“Democrats who are horrified [at Trump] could allow President Obama to act in the most unlawful way out of any president I have seen in my lifetime,” he remarked.

In comparison to Trump, Obama deported more than 2.5 million people between the years 2009 and 2015, expediting cases against children and families and earning himself the nickname “Deporter-in-Chief.”

Nearly 40,000 immigrant cases came under this expedited process with roughly 43 percent of those cases involving children that did not have access to a lawyer.

Kolken, describing the policy, said it was “easily the most inhumane immigration law in the last 20 years.”

That all changed on Jan. 31, however, when Trump issued a memorandum which was signed off by Chief Immigration Judge MaryBeth Keller for the Executive Office for Immigration Review.

Now, instead of being prioritized for deportation, Kolken says children “are being put to the back of the line for scheduling of cases.”

“This means that it could be quite a long time before they have to have a hearing before a judge,” he added.

As part of his campaign platform, Trump vowed to prioritize the deportation of criminal aliens above all else, which may in part explain this change in policy.

Kolken, an immigration lawyer and the managing partner of Kolken & Kolken, located in Buffalo, New York, said that the memorandum meant that children 'are being put to the back of the line for scheduling of cases'.

He told DailyMail.com: 'This means that it could be quite a long time before they have to have a hearing before a judge.

'Maybe the President has a heart when it comes to unaccompanied children. There's no other explanation'.

Kolken said Obama's prioritization of unaccompanied children for deportation was 'easily the most inhumane immigration law in the last 20 years'.