ImmigrationNumber of undocumented immigrants deported for minor offenses quadrupled
The Obama administration has dramatically increased the number undocumented immigrants being deported for minor offenses. Figures obtained by the New York Times through a Freedom of Information Act show a four-fold increase in deportations. Two-thirds of the nearly two million deportation cases the NYT studied involved people who had committed minor infractions or had no criminal record. The number of cases relating to people whose most serious offence was a traffic violation has quadrupled, rising from 43,000 over the last five years of George W Bush’s presidency to 193,000 since Obama took office.
The White House has defended the administration’s deportation policies, which saw a four-fold increase in the number of undocumented immigrants being deported for minor crimes such as driving offences. The White House said the administration was complying with “administration priorities” by removing foreign law-breakers from the country.
The information about the dramatic increase in deportations was obtained under Freedom of Information Act requests by the New York Times.
Pro-immigration advocates said the numbers show that the administration has stepped up deportations for two reasons – convince skeptical GOP lawmakers that the administration can be trusted to enforce the border security clauses in the Senate-supported immigration reform bill, and also make it easier for Democrats to run in red states in the November elections.
“The irony is that this was tactic that Obama and his administration used to show they were tough on immigration and enforcement but somewhere along the line they seem to have lost track of the very reason why they moved so aggressively,” Kica Matos, director of immigrant rights at the Center for Community Change, told the Guardian.
“They focused only on enforcement and did not devote anywhere near the same amount of energy to advancing comprehensive immigration reform legislation as they did to, say, healthcare reform.”
The Guardian reports that the New York Times investigation found two-thirds of the nearly two million deportation cases it studied involved people who had committed minor infractions or had no criminal record.
The number of cases relating to people whose most serious offence was a traffic violation has quadrupled, rising from 43,000 over the last five years of George W Bush’s presidency to 193,000 since Obama took office.
The White House yesterday insisted that DHS’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) division was mostly complying with guidelines requiring laws to be broken before undocumented immigrants are deported.
“Ninety-eight percent of ICE’s total removals last year met one more of the agency’s civil immigration enforcement priorities,” said spokesman Jay Carney. “Other than convicted criminals, priorities include those apprehended while attempting to unlawfully enter the United States, illegal re-entry, and fugitives from immigration court.
He said 82 percent of those removed from the United States were previously convicted of a criminal offense and 72 percent were convicted of more serious crimes involving violence or property theft.
Carney acknowledged, though, that the one of the challenges of such guidelines is that anyone caught attempting to re-enter after being removed is automatically guilty of a felony, a more serious class of crime.
He said that 93 percent of all ICE’s non-criminal removals were recent border crossers, repeated immigration violators or fugitives from immigration court, he said.
Two weeks ago, the White House announced a review of deportation practices by Homeland Security director Jeh Johnson in order to make deportation procedures “more humane,” and has asked pro-immigration campaigners to hold off from public criticism and give it ninety more days to try to convince Republicans in the House of Representatives of the need for wider immigration reform.
