In the 2008 Presidential Election, then-candidate Barack Obama promised voters that he would adamantly pursue immigration reform.

"I cannot guarantee that it is going to be in the first 100 days," he said to Jorge Ramos in an interview. "But what I can guarantee is that we will have in the first year an immigration bill that I strongly support and that I'm promoting. And I want to move that forward as quickly as possible."

Nearly six years later, President Obama has done little to fulfill this promise. Far from the aggressive stance he took during his first presidential campaign, Obama has not only failed to pass any sort of immigration bill, he has appeared almost powerless when questioned as to his lack of action.

However, while Obama has been weak on implementing immigration legislation, he has come stronger than any president to date in one regard of dealing with undocumented immigrants. The Obama administration holds the honor of being responsible for more deportations than ever before.

According to Politifact, President Obama has overseen a total of 1,582,756 deportations whilst in office. This is at a rate of 395,689 deportations a year. The Bush administration by comparison, averaged about 251,567 deportations annually.

"The truth is we're at the point of reaching 2 million deportations," said Janet Murguía, president of National Council of La Raza in an interview. "For us, this is a historic level, more than any other president of the United States. Our community is in crisis, and this isn't acceptable."

It's odd that a president supposedly so devoted to paving the pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, would instead blaze a trail in kicking people out of the country. Of course, the explanation for this would be that those who were deported were criminals. So more deportations must equal more crime among undocumented immigrants, right?

It depends on what your definition of crime is. A new Pew Research study has discovered that a great majority of convictions that have eventually resulted in deportations are for unlawful reentry. Unlawful reentry is a federal crime in which an immigrant is found to have entered or attempted to enter the country illegally more than once, or found to have entered the country after deportation.

According to the Hispanic Trends Project study, "Unlawful reentry cases alone accounted for 26% of sentenced federal offenders-second only to drug offenses in 2012. This is up 13-fold since 1992, when offenders sentenced for unlawful reentry made up just 2% of sentenced offenders. These trends match the population growth in the Federal Bureau of Prisons system."

Researchers found that in 2012, unlawful reentry was the second most common federal crime, after drug offenses. Immigration related offenses made up 30 percent of federal convictions. This is a massive increase from 1992, when immigration offenses only accounted for 5 percent of federal convictions, with only 2 percent being due to unlawful reentry.

Most of those convicted for unlawful reentry received prison sentences, serving an average of two years before being deported. This of course helps to create the illusion that undocumented immigrants are prone to commit crime. Yet this study shows that this is far from the truth.

The report goes on to say, "Among unauthorized immigrants sentenced in federal courts in 2012, 68% were convicted of "unlawfully entering or remaining in the United States," 19 percent were sentenced for drug offenses, 7 percent were sentenced for other immigration related offenses and the remainder (6 percent) were sentenced for other crimes.

Also, "In 2012, 74% of all unlawful reentry cases were sentenced in just five of the nation's 94 U.S. district courts. All five were located along the U.S.-Mexico border: the Southern and Western Districts of Texas, the District of Arizona, the District of New Mexico, and the Southern District of California."

In addition, the study found that 92 percent of immigrants charged with unlawful reentry were Latino. Latinos were also far more likely to receive prison sentences for the crime. Ninety-seven percent of Hispanic offenders got prison time, versus 86 percent of non-Hispanic offenders.

The Obama administrations commitment to deporting so-called "criminals," whose only crime was attempting to find a decent job or reunite with their families across the border, seems counter to the president's original agenda of helping undocumented immigrants achieve citizenship. The unlawful entry convictions and subsequent deportations may serve as a deterrent for illegal immigration, but it is not a solution.

What's more, Obama's lack of action on immigration reform combined with his historic deportation rate has earned him the nickname "deporter-in-chief" among some in the Latino community.

In what seemed an attempt to satisfy Latino voters and advocates for immigration reform, last week Obama vowed to review deportation practices for undocumented immigrants. While this seemed a step in the right direction, others expected more action and less promises. Many are calling for an expansion of Obama's 2012 executive decision to halt deportations of children who had entered the country illegally.