RemittancesGateway.org

US: Deportations of illegal immigrants climb to new record

Thursday, 07 October 2010 01:50

Source: Washington Post
By: Shankar Vedantam

The Obama administration announced Wednesday that in the past year it deported more than 392,000 unauthorized immigrants - a record.

Officials at the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency said that 195,000 of these removals, during the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, were convicted criminals. They included more than 1,000 murderers, nearly 6,000 sex-offenders, 45,000 drug-offenders and 28,000 drunk drivers.

The percentage of deported unauthorized immigrants who are criminals has soared in recent years, in keeping with a new emphasis at the Department of Homeland Security to use immigration enforcement as a crime-fighting tool.

"We've made a decision to go after criminal aliens and prioritize them for removal," said Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. She added, "It has been another record-breaking year at ICE - one that has seen ICE enforce the law at record levels, and in sensible, firm and thoughtful ways."

The figure was just above the 2009 total of 389,834 - about a third of whom the government considered convicted criminals,according to the Associated Press.

Critics of the policy said that the tools being used to enforce immigration statutes - largely in conjunction with state and local law enforcement officials - were overly blunt and sweeping up unauthorized immigrants who had committed minor offenses, or no offense at all.

Immigrants who overstay their visas or enter the country without authorization are not considered criminals; unauthorized immigration is an administrative violation. The Obama administration has sought to distinguish such immigrants from those who have committed actual crimes.