U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement

Top five immigration stories of 2011, #2: More record deportations

Photo by John Moore/Getty Images

A man is prepared for a deportation flight bound for San Salvador in Mesa, Arizona, December 2010

In fiscal year 2011, the Obama administration broke its own deportation record for the second straight year, deporting close to 400,000 people in the year that ended last Sept. 30.

It wouldn’t be a stretch to say that news of another record-breaking year for removals was pretty much expected, with the continued expansion of federal immigration enforcement programs like Secure Communities and 287(g), both of which have fed the deportation pipeline in recent years with a steady flow of cases stemming from local law enforcement.

The number of deportations has crept upward steadily for years now. According to a federal chart, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has removed these many people in recent years:

FY 2010 = 392,862

FY 2009 = 389,834

FY 2008 = 369,221

FY 2007 = 291,060

Still, it’s a story that has legs, as newspaper editors used to say, and which continues to raise questions.

Among these questions is just who being deported, and whether the programs being used are working as intended. The Obama administration has long made a point that its focus is on deporting immigrants (including legal residents) with criminal records. An October press release from ICE read that “nearly 55 percent or 216,698 of the people removed were convicted of felonies or misdemeanors — an 89 percent increase in the removal of criminals since FY 2008.”

But analyses of federal deportation stats have pointed out gray areas. Last summer, an Associated Press analysis revealed that among those counted as criminal deportees are a growing number of people who have been deported following traffic and DUI arrests; the number of those deported following less-serious, non-DUI traffic offenses had close to tripled over a two-year period. From a story in July:

The U.S. deported nearly 393,000 people in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, half of whom were considered criminals.

Of those, 27,635 had been arrested for drunken driving, more than double the 10,851 deported after drunken driving arrests in 2008, the last full year of the Bush administration, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement data provided to The Associated Press.

An additional 13,028 were deported last year after being arrested on less serious traffic law violations, nearly three times the 4,527 traffic offenders deported two years earlier, according to the data.

DUI offenders made up a large number (35,927) of those deported in fiscal year 2011, as did people convicted of drug-related offenses (44,653). Violent offenders (homicide, 1,119; sexual offenses, 5,848) were fewer in number, according to ICE.

As for the non-criminals being deported, some are being ensnared through the methods used to target serious criminals, another criticism of the administration’s enforcement tactics. Reports have indicated that nearly half the immigrants who have been caught up in the embattled Secure Communities program, which allows for biometric data of people fingerprinted in local jails to be shared with immigration officials, have been non-criminals or low-level misdemeanor offenders.

A more recent report from Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) tallied up the criminal charges used in the nation’s immigration courts, coming up with a much lower percentage of criminal charges found in deportation cases. ICE called the analysis “wildly misleading,” attributing the difference to the fact that the agency doesn’t always note prior criminal records in deportation cases. However, these individuals still make the annual criminal tally in the federal deportation stats.

The growing number of deportations has had broader domestic repercussions as more immigrants are sent back to their native countries, among them a growing number of mixed-status or legal-resident families in the U.S. left without a parent (or sometimes both parents), and a growing number of U.S. citizen children of deported parents landing in foster care.

In August, the Obama administration announced that it would review some 300,000 deportation cases to ferret out those deemed a “low priority” for removal under a set of prosecutorial discretion guidelines released by ICE earlier this year, again stating that its focus is on criminals. Among those who could be spared are undocumented immigrants who arrived here as children, college students and graduates, and immigrants with U.S. military ties. The review process is being pilot-tested now.

If the reviews are expanded and some deportation cases are indeed thrown out (though these individuals would still not have legal status – but that’s another story), will it make a dent in the deportation caseload next year? Or will the continued expansion of programs like Secure Communities, which the federal government has declared mandatory and is expected to be operating nationwide by 2013, make for another record year of removals in 2012?

Come back tomorrow for top story #1.

FILED UNDER: 287(g), ICE, Record deportations, Secure Communities, Top five immigration stories of 2011, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement

December 28, 2011 | 1:56 PM | By Leslie Berestein Rojas

Hundreds at ‘Occupy ICE’ rally in downtown L.A.

Photo by Corey Moore/KPCC

"Occupy ICE" protesters in Los Angeles, December 15, 2011

KPCC’s Corey Moore reported on today’s “Occupy ICE” protest in downtown Los Angeles, organized by labor, civil and immigrant rights groups. It’s one of a slowly growing number of immigration-related Occupy protests, similar to one that took place in San Diego last month.

Hundreds joined the rally, according to the story, protesting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Secure Communities fingerprint-sharing enforcement program and the separation of mixed-status families as the federal government has carried out record numbers of deportations. A march concluded at the downtown federal building, where ICE has an office.

Check here later for audio.

FILED UNDER: Politics/Justice, ICE, Occupy ICE, Occupy LA, Occupy Wall Street, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement

December 15, 2011 | 12:21 PM | By Leslie Berestein Rojas

More immigration-Occupy synergy as ‘Occupy ICE’ comes to L.A.

Photo by DB's Travels/Flickr (Creative Commons)

A sign at the Occupy L.A. camp, October 2011

Several posts lately have explored the immigrant rights component of the Occupy movement, at least in California, where Occupy protesters in Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Diego have counted immigration among the many issues they’ve taken up.

Last month, protesters in San Diego mounted an “Occupy ICE” rally organized by the local janitors’ union. The Service Employees International Union has joined with with other labor, civil and immigrant rights groups to do the same in Los Angeles today, with a march to the downtown federal building, which houses a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office.

In spite of recent immigration-related Occupy protests in New York and Alabama, perhaps nowhere has the Occupy movement – initially accused of being too white – been as involved with immigrant rights activism as in California. Late last month, as police prepared to remove the protesters’ camp outside City Hall, Occupy Los Angeles leaders put together and posted a list of “grievances not addressed” that included this request:

Los Angeles to be declared a sanctuary city for the undocumented, deportations to be discontinued and cooperation with immigration authorities be ended – including the turning in of arrestees’ names to immigration authorities.

In the Bay Area, some protesters became involved in a “Free Pancho” movement after the arrest in Oakland of Mexican-born protester and former graduate student Francisco “Pancho Ramos-Stierle, which landed him in the custody of immigration officials. Ramos-Stierle was eventually released pending a deportation hearing.

According to the Occupy Los Angeles website, protesters today are rallying “to help end the targeting of immigrant workers and their families, who have struggled to make poverty jobs, into good jobs!” (That’s their exclamation point.)

FILED UNDER: Politics/Justice, ICE, Occupy ICE, Occupy LA, Occupy Wall Street, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement

November 14, 2011 | 11:01 AM | By Leslie Berestein Rojas

Obama administration’s new deportation policy being applied unevenly

Photo by John Moore/Getty Images

A man is prepared for a deportation flight bound for San Salvador in Mesa, Arizona, December 2010

A series of recent posts on Multi-American highlighted how a new deportation policy announced in August by the Obama administration, which promised to potentially spare thousands from deportation, was being applied unevenly.

Homeland Security officials announced that they would review the deportation cases of some 300,000 immigrants deemed a low priority for removal, among them young people who arrived here as minors and had no criminal record. But people who meet the criteria for leniency have continued moving through the deportation pipeline. One prominent recent example was Matias Ramos, a UCLA graduate and student activist who in September suddenly found himself wearing an electronic shackle and informed that he was to be deported to Argentina, where he was born.

Ramos was granted a last-minute temporary reprieve, as have other potential young deportees who have been the focus of social media campaigns by student activists and advocacy groups. But while some like these have been spared, others who meet the criteria and have similar backgrounds and similarly clean records continue to be deported.

The New York Times examined the problem in a story this weekend, citing from a new report from the American Immigration Lawyers Association and the American Immigration Council. The report collected data from 252 cases handled by attorneys who had asked U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to exercise prosecutorial discretion for their clients. From the story:

“The overwhelming conclusion is that most ICE offices have not changed their practices since the issuance of these new directives,” the report found.

“This is a classic example of leadership saying one thing and the rank and file doing another,” said Gregory Chen, director of advocacy for the lawyers association. The report found that training for immigration officers on the new guidelines had been lacking.

Officials at the Homeland Security Department acknowledge the policy’s slow start. Mr. Morton’s June guidelines were followed by a three-month lull, when resistance grew among agents in the field. In late September, Ms. Napolitano and Mr. Morton went on the offensive to press the policy, and since then Mr. Morton has been on the road inaugurating training programs.

“Like any major change in enforcement policy, this is a work in progress,” Mr. Morton said by telephone from Miami, where he was joining in a training session. “I have been handling much of the initial explanation myself, because I feel so strongly about it.”

Some of the immigrants whose cases were documented in the report experienced vastly different outcomes, despite similar legal backgrounds. Included in the story are cases like that of Rubén Quinteros, a 43-year-old undocumented immigrant from Uruguay who was arrested by immigration officials eight days before his planned wedding and deported in late October. The end result of his case was a far cry from that of Manuel Bartsch, an 24-year-old undocumented man brought to the U.S. from Germany when he was 10. After fighting deportation for years, his deportation case was terminated earlier this month, and he will now be able to apply for a work permit.

Last month, Homeland Security secretary Janet Napolitano announced that a pilot program to begin reviewing the cases of immigrants deemed a low deportation priority would begin “in a few weeks.”

FILED UNDER: Politics/Justice, AILA, Deportation, Deportation policy, Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, Matias Ramos, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement

October 19, 2011 | 5:27 PM | By Leslie Berestein Rojas

‘Lost in Detention’ online: Government documents on sexual abuse allegations, more

Photo by Mauricio Rabuffetti/AFP Getty Images

A guard stands outside one of the tent-like structures at the Willacy Detention Center in Texas, May 2007

PBS Frontline has followed up last night’s “Lost in Detention” special on the immigrant detention system – and the policies landing a growing number of immigrants in it – with additional materials online.

The Frontline website has posted a series of government documents related to more than 170 allegations of sexual abuse in the last four years, with the largest number of abuse compliants coming from the Willacy Detention Center, a privately operated detention center in Raymondville, Texas that has been nation’s largest. Built from Kevlar domes and commonly referred to as a “tent city,” it was announced in June that the facility was losing its U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainees, and will instead be housing foreign-born “criminal alien” inmates for the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

According to Frontline, their investigation into sexual abuse complaints in the detention system “found no evidence that the vast majority of complaints had been investigated or resolved.” From the website:

Most of the complaints went through the Department of Homeland Security’s Inspector General’s (IG) Office, which is the primary office responsible for investigating outside complaints. IG records show only 15 “reports of investigation,” which resulted in six substantiated or partially substantiated cases. Two guards were convicted of sexual abuse; three others have been terminated from their positions.

The documents, together with interviews of dozens of detainees, employees, investigators and officials, present a portrait of detainees with few effective recourses if they are victims of crimes while in detention. Many say they face continuous pressure to sign deportation orders. And unlike in the criminal justice system, immigration detainees do not have a guaranteed right of legal representation, and so have difficulty with access to counsel if they have a grievance.

A former mental health coordinator at Willacy Detention Center in Raymondville, Texas, told FRONTLINE that officials attempted to cover up complaints of sexual abuse, which she described as common among female detainees. The coordinator said she later resigned because of the treatment of detainees at the facility.

The site also features an interactive map of detention facilities around the country. In case you missed the documentary, the first chapter can be viewed online. Here’s the video:

Watch Lost in Detention on PBS. See more from FRONTLINE.

FILED UNDER: ICE, Immigrant detention, Lost in Detention, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Willacy Detention Center

October 19, 2011 | 12:45 PM | By Leslie Berestein Rojas

Report: Secure Communities affects U.S. citizens, too

Art by José Luís Agapito/Flickr (Creative Commons)

A new report examining Secure Communities, the immigration enforcement program partly responsible for the Obama administration’s record number of deportations, reveals some of the demographics, immigration status, and other key details about who has been arrested and deported under the program since it began rolling out in 2008.

Secure Communities allows for the fingerprints of people booked into local jails to be shared with immigration officials, who are notified when prints match immigration records. The idea is to net undocumented immigrants and deportable legal residents with criminal records, a stated goal of the Obama administration.

But as noted in the report by the UC Berkeley Law School, U.S. citizens are affected by the program in more ways than one might think. Citizens have been arrested, and to a much larger degree, have had family members deported. According to the report, nearly 40 percent of the people arrested by immigration authorities under Secure Communities have been the spouses or parents of U.S. citizens.

From a list of key findings:

• Approximately 3,600 United States citizens have been arrested by ICE through the Secure Communities program.

• More than one-third (39%) of individuals arrested through Secure Communities report that they have a U.S. citizen spouse or child, meaning that approximately 88,000 families with U.S. citizen members have been impacted by Secure Communities.

Among the other key findings: As reported in the New York Times, Latinos are disproportionately affected, with a greater percentage of Latinos arrested through Secure Communities than there are Latino undocumented immigrants (though it’s worth noting that legal U.S. residents with criminal offenses may also be arrested and deported). From the report:

• Latinos comprise 93% of individuals arrested through Secure Communities though they only comprise 77% of the undocumented population in the United States.

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FILED UNDER: ICE, Record deportations, Secure Communities, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement

October 5, 2011 | 2:46 PM | By Leslie Berestein Rojas

Human smuggling by sea: A dangerous trend grows deadlier

Photo by lowjumpingfrog/Flickr (Creative Commons)

Pangas, the type of fishing boats typically used by human smugglers ferrying people up the coast from Baja California

UPDATED: Of the two deaths, one was related to a boat smuggling attempt, the other to an attempt to swim north around the border fence. It was originally reported that both were related to boat incidents.

Three months ago, the discovery of 15 migrants left stranded for days on remote Santa Cruz Island, about 20 miles off Ventura, made national headlines. Now the trend of smuggling humans up the California coast has taken a darker turn, with two suspected migrants reported dead today – in two separate incidents.

According to the Associated Press, the U.S. Border Patrol reported that one of the people who died was found Tuesday night in Imperial Beach, not far from the U.S.-Mexico border. The second was a man found lying face down in a boat that washed ashore early this morning in Pacific Beach, a popular San Diego tourist beach. Several were injured in that incident; of the 15 people packing the boat, 11 needed emergency medical care.

Human smuggling by sea has become increasingly popular along the California coast in recent years, as border security has made crossing by land more difficult. But as has long been the case off the coast of southern Florida, where migrant drownings and disappearances are common, it’s a very risky undertaking. There have already been several smuggling accidents off the California coast, including a capsizing last year near San Diego that killed two people.

Early last year, I reported on a Baja California fishing village known by authorities to be a launching point for human smugglers, who pack their passengers into small boats known as pangas at night and take off from the beach. I included this and other background on the smuggling boat trend in a post last July:

…the smuggling boats continue to take off from Popotla, as well as from other launch spots farther south, closer to Ensenada. One difference is that last year, most of the smuggling boats were still landing near San Diego, with a few landing in Orange County. Since then, as evidenced by the stranded migrants on Santa Cruz Island, some of these trips have been getting longer.

It’s a dangerous journey. The boats lack adequate safety equipment, are overcrowded, and travel farther out to sea with heavier loads than what they’re built to do. Some have capsized, like one did this week off Orange County. A capsizing last year near Torrey Pines State Beach near San Diego resulted in the deaths of two migrants.

For this, people pay as much as $5,000, according to U.S. and Mexican authorities. The idea is to evade tightened security on land, making the trip much costlier than a land trek. In spite of the cost, smuggling by sea has become increasingly popular, with U.S. officials logging a growing number arrests since they began noticing the trend about four years ago near the border.

According to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the number of maritime smuggling incidents discovered has grown dramatically in the past two years, and those are the ones authorities know about. Between Oct. 1 of last year and August 31, 104 suspected smuggling boats were seized between San Diego and Santa Barbara counties, and 602 people arrested.

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