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CNN’s John King: Problems At The Border Didn’t Start With Trump

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CNN’s John King took time Tuesday to note that problems at the U.S. border did not start with President Donald Trump.

Democrats have criticized Trump and his administration for its immigration policies, as well as the treatment of migrants at the border. King said the U.S. faced many of the same problems under the Obama administration. (RELATED: Tear Gas And Cages: What Immigration Enforcement Looked Like Under Vice President Joe Biden)

“This particular issue is not new,” King said. “This has been a problem the U.S. government has had to figure out a solution to for a long time.”

King then replayed an interview that former President Barack Obama did with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, where Obama issued a warning to migrant families not to send their children “unaccompanied” to the U.S.

“That is five years ago this very week. That’s five years ago this very week, in the sense that, again, there’s a current divide. The current president evokes emotions among Democrats.”  King said.  “A lot of progressives weren’t happy with that president, President Obama. They called him the ‘deporter-in-chief.’ But this issue has been unresolved, different pieces of it, for 20 plus years about unaccompanied children. That’s a clip from five years ago this week. When? How?”

WATCH:

Liberals were outraged when Trump announced plans to remove millions of illegal immigrants from the country. However, deportation rates were actually higher under Obama’s watch than they have been under Trump. (RELATED: Trump Will Delay Deportations To Work On ‘Solution’ With Congress)

The Obama administration deported a record 409,849 illegal immigrants in the fiscal year 2012, far higher than any year under Trump thus far.