The press is in full-on outrage mode over President Trump’s swift move to deport foreigners illegally in the United States, even though Presidents Obama and Biden did exactly the same thing during their time in the White House.

In January 2016, Mr. Obama ordered the mass arrest of Central American immigrant families, even though immigrant rights groups and some members of his own party objected to the deportations of mothers and children. Over a single weekend, 121 people were arrested in Georgia, Texas, and North Carolina and put on a deportation track, the White House announced at the time. 

“Immigration and Customs Enforcement engaged in concerted, nationwide enforcement operations to take into custody and return at a greater rate adults who entered this country illegally with children,” the Homeland Security Secretary, Jeh Johnson, said in a statement. “This should come as no surprise. I have said publicly for months that individuals who constitute enforcement priorities, including families and unaccompanied children, will be removed.”

Mr. Trump is now doing the same thing. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials made 956 arrests on Sunday as part of what the president vows will be the “largest deportation operation” in American history, the agency said in a statement. That followed 538 arrests and 373 detainers on Thursday, plus ICE’s move to start using U.S. military flights to fly out hundreds of “illegal immigrant criminals,” the agency said in a statement.

Amid the president’s actions, some liberal news agencies are decrying the deportations. “Days into the new Trump administration, worries spike amid a show of force on immigration,” PBS said on Sunday. 

“Rumors of arrests and news reports or social media posts about the presence of agents sparked worries in communities around the country. Some rights groups launched plans to protect immigrants in the event of arrests at schools or workplaces,” PBS wrote.

Yet there was little angst when Mr. Obama did the same. What’s more, similar deportation flights also took place under the administration of Mr. Biden. For instance, ICE averaged 311 daily arrests in the fiscal year that ended September 30, with many being deported back to their home countries from America, the agency said.

When Mr. Obama was president, White House press secretary Josh Earnest defended the deportation of those who recently entered the United States illegally.

“Some operations have taken place that have been focused on individuals, deporting individuals that have recently crossed the border. That is consistent with the kinds of enforcement priorities that the president and the secretary of homeland security discussed more than a year ago,” Mr. Earnest said in a daily briefing for reporters. “Certainly, people should take from this the understanding that the administration is quite serious about enforcing our immigration laws.”

Mr. Earnest said politics played no role in the Obama-era raids. “I can assure you that politics did not factor in these kinds of enforcement decisions,” the White House spokesman said. “Ultimately, when it comes to enforcement issues, those are decisions that are made by law enforcement professionals.”

Yet liberal news organizations, like the Associated Press, are insisting that Mr. Trump’s actions are purely political. After the House last week passed a bill that requires the detainment of unauthorized immigrants accused of theft and violent crimes, the AP said the legislation “shows just how sharply the political debate over immigration has shifted to the right following Trump’s election victory.”

The wire service did, however, note that “a crucial faction of 46 politically vulnerable Democrats joined with Republicans to lift the strict proposal to passage on a 263-156 vote tally.”