Obama Administration Drastically Steps Up Deportation of Parents of U.S.-Born Citizens

Friday, April 06, 2012
The Obama administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration has swept up significantly more adults whose children were born in the U.S., potentially breaking up thousands of families.
 
In just one six-month span last year (January to June), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deported 46,486 parents of U.S. citizens. This total represents almost half of the entire number deported (100,000) in the ten-year period from 1998 to 2007.
 
“No solid information exists to measure what happens to deported parents’ children,” wrote Susan Ferriss of iWatch News. “Some leave with their parents, others remain here with family members or on their own and some may go into foster care.”
 
News of the rising deportation of parents upset some Democratic Latino lawmakers in Congress, who accused the Obama Administration of misplaced priorities.
 
Representative Charles Gonzalez of Texas, chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, noted that undocumented parents “comprise a labor pool that is vital to many American businesses.”
 
Gonzalez added that ICE should focus on deporting people with serious criminal records. “I urge ICE to use its policy of prosecutorial discretion to prioritize deportation proceedings … and then deport individuals that pose a danger to our communities.”
-Noel Brinkerhoff
 
To Learn More:
Deportation of Parents of U.S.-Born Citizens (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) (pdf)

Border Patrol Deported U.S.-Born Daughter of Fourth-Generation U.S. Citizen (by Noel Brinkerhoff and David Wallechinsky, AllGov) 

Comments

Polly 11 years ago
That's the best answer by far! Thanks for cotnrbiuitng.
Ugly American 12 years ago
usually in america we hold the parents responsible for the harm their actions do to their family. foreigners would rather say "it's not my fault!" and blame their actions on our government. the fourteenth amendment was meant to make citizens of former slaves and their children, not to give the gift of citizenship and permanent residency in the us to every illegal alien who managed to get across the border before dropping a kid. just because the child has citizenship doesn't mean the parents have a right to stay. and if they think it will break up their family, they can take their "us citizen child" along with them to their country. the dirty little secret foreigners and their countries don't want us to know is that the children are also citizens of their parent's country as well. as much as they might like there to be, there is no "civil right" in the us for foreign nationals to ignore our laws and we don't have a moral obligation to let them stay just because they've had kids here.

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