Art work by Rini Templeton

A NYTimes study of deportations under the Obama Administration finds that despite what President Obama has been saying, only 20 percent of the nearly two million immigrants who have been deported have serious criminal records. The rest have minor records or no record at all.

Mr. Obama came to office promising comprehensive immigration reform, but lacking sufficient support, the administration took steps it portrayed as narrowing the focus of enforcement efforts on serious criminals. Yet the records show that the enforcement net actually grew, picking up more and more immigrants with minor or no criminal records.  ….

“For years, the Obama administration’s spin has been that they are simply deporting so-called ‘criminal aliens,’ but the numbers speak for themselves,” said Marielena Hincapié, executive director of the National Immigration Law Center. “In truth, this administration — more than any other — has devastated immigrant communities across the country, tearing families away from loved ones, simply because they drove without a license, or re-entered the country desperately trying to be reunited with their family members.”  READ  THE FULL STORY HERE.

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I’ve been a Mission resident since 1998 and a professor emeritus at Berkeley’s J-school since 2019. I got my start in newspapers at the Albuquerque Tribune in the city where I was born and raised. Like many local news outlets, The Tribune no longer exists. I left daily newspapers after working at The New York Times for the business, foreign and city desks. Lucky for all of us, it is still here.

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2 Comments

  1. How can someone who entered the country illegally be said to have no record? They’ve all committed a crime, by definition.

    Only if they haven’t been caught yet, technically, would they not have a record. Yet.

    Nobody said they were illegal because they were criminals. Their crime is being here not what they do when they are here.

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