ImmigrationThe administration does not follow its own deportation criteria
The Obama administration has set a record for deporting illegal immigrants, but the administration’s declared policy is to concentrate on criminals and other illegal immigrants who pose a risk. Yet, the administration has also been deporting immigrants who are not top priority according to the administration’s own criteria, and who may be eligible for legal residency if Congress reforms immigration law.
Critics charge administration countrmands its own deportation rules // Source: usc.edu
In June, advocates for immigrants rallying to halt the deportation of Justo Barrios were surprised when the 24-year-old construction worker was sent to jail pending deportation to Guatemala. “It seems so unjust,” Sister Narvaez, a member of the Missionary Sisters Servants of the Word, said in Spanish from the convent where Barrios is a youth leader. “These are people who risk their lives to come here…They treat them like criminals.”
The Boston Globe reports that without explanation, U.S. immigration officers released Barrios just days after the newspaper interviewed him. The case, however, is one of several deportation cases that have stunned advocates for immigrants, including some members of congress.
The Obama administration has set a record for deporting illegal immigrants, but the administration’s declared policy is to concentrate on criminals and other illegal immigrants who pose a risk. Yet, the administration has also been deporting immigrants who are not top priority according to the administration’s own criteria, and who may be eligible for legal residency if Congress reforms immigration law..
“Honestly, when we took this case we were like, ‘This is going to be a piece of cake,’ ”said Conrado Santos, campaign coordinator for the Student Immigrant Movement, a Boston-based group that advocates for immigrant youth. He added later that the detention of immigrants such as Barrios “makes us wonder if the administration is really as committed to reform as they say they are.”
Senators Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut) personally urged immigration officials to halt two deportations in recent weeks. Both senators serve on the Senate Judiciary Committee, which held hearings on a comprehensive immigration bill that passed the Senate in June, which would allow millions of immigrants to embark on a path to citizenship. “There is no time to wait, there is no time to waste,” Blumenthal told a crowd. “We need a call to action that says the House of Representatives must pass this bill. We need to get this done and we will with your help.”
Those who oppose immigration reform and instead call for more consistent enforcement of the existing law, say there is no guarantee Congress will pass an immigration bill which would dramatically change the current policy. “The advocates are trying to create this sense of inevitability that just doesn’t exist,” said Mark Krikorian, executive director for the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington, D.C. think tank that favors stricter enforcement. “We don’t really know what’s going to happen.”
According to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a research center at Syracuse University, the Obama administration has halted more than 20,000 deportations in the immigration courts, but the closures represent less than 10 percent of the court caseload, and in 2012 officials deported thousands of immigrants without criminal records. This followed a 2011 statement by the director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), who said the agency would focus on deporting criminals and other flagrant violators of the law, so as to use the agency’s resources more effectively.
