May 4, 2008 7:05 PM
The Immigration 101 series tracks my course at Hofstra Law School.
The United States has, over the last twenty-two years taken two basic approaches to reducing the number of undocumented immigrants. First is deportations. Second is employer sanctions. Enforcement of sanctions against employers has declined over the years, while deportations have steadily risen.
It is a commonplace to hear that the U.S. has stopped deporting undocumented immigrants and that we need to go back to some magical time, usually people cite the Reagan administration on this one, when "we enforced the law".
Actually, deportations were much rarer during the Reagan and George H. W. Bush administration. Even during the early years of the Clinton presidency, only 51,000 people were deported in an average year. That had changed dramatically by Clinton's second term. Annual deportations (now called "removals") had quadrupled. In fact, deportations set a record in Clinton's last year in office, reaching 272,000 formal and expedited removals. Deportations declined at first during George W. Bush's presidency, but by 2005 they had set a new record of 281,000. Since then, thenumbers have only grown.
Most deportees fit into one of three groups: 1. Persons caught near the border; 2. Persons arrested for crimes by state and local police who are then turned over to Homeland Security; and 3. Persons who were previously ordered to leave the U.S., but who failed to do so. There is now a fourth and growing group, immigrants who are caught up in raids directed against individuals in the third group.
In our next installment, we'll look at how the raids work, and how they have changed in ways that are terrifying to the Latino community.
Read other parts of this series:
Immigration 101 is a comprehensive series on American immigration law for the layperson. This series tracks my course on immigration law at Hofstra Law School and answers many of your questions about immigration policy.
Here is the current list of articles in this series.
Immigration 101 Overview of the Immigration System
Immigration 101 Employment Based
Immigration 101 Family Based Immigration
Immigration 101 So what makes up a family
Immigration 101 History We need a new Ellis Island
Immigration 101 Coming to the U.S.
Immigration 101 Stopping 'em at the border
Immigration 101 Don't Give Me Your Poor
Immigration 101 Free Speech Part 1
Immigration 101 Free Speech Part 2
Immigration 101 Keeping the Chinese Out Part 1
Immigration 101 The Chinese Exclusion Act Cases Part 2
Immigration 101 Employer Sanctions Part 1 Introduction
Immigration 101 Employer Sanctions Part 2 How employers evade the law
Immigration 101 Employer Sanctions Part 3 The impact of sanctions on immigrants
Immigration 101 ICE Storm-An on the ground look at raids
Immigration 101 Sept. 11 and immigration
Immigration 101 How the Sept. 11 Hijackers got into the United States
Immigration 101 Becoming a Citizen Pat 1
Immigration 101 Becoming a Citizen Part 2 Good Moral Character
Immigration 101 Becoming a Citizen Part 3 English
Immigration 101 Becoming a Citizen-Part 4 What is an American?
Immigration 101 Becoming a Citizen-Part 5 What does an American believe?
Immigration 101 Becoming A Citizen Part 6 A confident view of who we are
I think this is a great informational tool. There are so many facts that we forget and it's really positive to be reminded by history itself again.
By Karla Mansilla May 5, 2008 10:37 AM
I do agree with this new era in immigration at some point for it will serve as a security in the country. It can also be the solution to the problems of maintaining a lower supplies of backlogs. It is very important nowadays to get the key immigrants at their most in a short period of time.This is not yet approved right? but I'll support this newly introduced legislation.
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LiLi
New York Immigration Lawyer Marina Shepelsky, located in Brooklyn, assists clients from the New York metro area and across the United States in all immigration and naturalization matters http://www.e-us-visa.com
By LiLi May 7, 2008 02:27 AM