A record number of people were "deported" from the U.S. during President Obama's tenure as president, due in large part to a change in definition.

However, that statistic is somewhat misleading, as a significant portion of it was due to a change in the way "deportations" are defined that began during the Bush administration, not in the actual number of persons turned out of the U.S. As the Los Angeles Times noted, if not for that change in definition about what constitutes a "deportation," the Obama administration likely would not have been a record-setting one in this area:

     The number of people deported at or near the [U.S.-Mexico] border has gone up -- primarily as a result of changing who gets counted in the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency's deportation statistics.

    The vast majority of those border crossers would not have been treated as formal deportations under most previous administrations. If all removals were tallied, the total sent back to Mexico each year would have been far higher under those previous administrations than it is now.

    Until recent years, most people caught illegally crossing the southern border were simply bused back into Mexico in what officials called "voluntary returns," but which critics derisively termed "catch and release." Those removals, which during the 1990s reached more 1 million a year, were not counted in Immigration and Customs Enforcement's deportation statistics.

    Now, the vast majority of border crossers who are apprehended get fingerprinted and formally deported. The change began during the George W. Bush administration and accelerated under Obama. The policy stemmed in part from a desire to ensure that people who had crossed into the country illegally would have formal charges on their records.

    In the Obama years, all of the increase in deportations has involved people picked up within 100 miles of the border, most of whom [had] just