ImmigrationDeportations go on while immigration reform debate continues
The Obama administration has continued to deport illegal immigrants even as the fight over immigration reform goes on. President Obama has said his administration will not stop deportation orders until immigration reform has been passed, but immigration reform advocates say the administration should stop deporting immigrants who would be eligible for the path to citizenship under the terms of the Gang of Eight immigration overhaul bill.
Deportations continue during immigration reform debate // Source: usc.edu
The Obama administration has continued to deport illegal immigrants even as the fight over immigration reform goes on.
An immigration bill drafted by a bi-partisan group of senators would allow deportees to apply to return to the United States if they entered the United States as a child, or are a spouse or parent of a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident.
The Huffington Post reports that the Obama administration has funding to deport about 400,000 people per year, and the administration has made it a point to target illegal immigrants who committed crimes in the United States.
President Obama has said his administration will not stop deportation orders until immigration reform has been passed.
“There’re still obviously gonna be people who get caught up in the system … that’s heartbreaking,” Obama told Telemundo’s José Díaz-Balart in January. “But that’s why we’re pushing for comprehensive immigration reform. Obviously, if this was an issue that I could do unilaterally I would have done it a long time ago.”
After the release of the bill drafted by the group of senators, AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka said the Obama administration should stop deporting immigrants who would be eligible for the path to citizenship under the terms of the bill.
“That is the sensible and humane thing to do,” Trumka said in a statement last week. “When a war is about to end, it makes sense to reach a cease-fire rather than extend the suffering needlessly.”
According to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency, last year more than half of those removed from the United States were convicted of either a misdemeanor or felony, but more than 150,000 undocumented young immigrants were told they can stay as a result of the implementation of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program last August.
Advocates are happy with the deferred action program, but they say it is not enough which is why immigration reform must come quickly.
“We must understand the urgency of our fight and of our struggle,” Representative Luis Gutierrez (D-Illinois) told the crowd at a major immigration rally outside the Capitol earlier this month. “They will deport 1,400 people today. There will be 300 American citizen children who will come home and not find their dad or their mom.”
Deportations under the Obama administration have skyrocketed. Since 2009 there have been more than 1.5 million deportations, although some of them occurred during the end of President George W. Bush’s second term. In 2012 there were 409,849 deportations, which broke the previous year’s record and averaged out to 1,123 per day.
The administration is also on pace to break the record for deportations during Bush’s two terms, with more than two million deportations by 2014.
