Deportations Under New US Policy Aren’t Consistent
This weekend I was researching about immigration and I came across two articles about deportation. In the articles, it talked about how the Obama Administration’s policy of deportation was putting forth their efforts on only deporting those illegal immigrants who are criminals. It states in an article from The New York Times that when the policy was put in action it confused many lawyers and officials because I guess it was spread out unevenly across the United States, so not everyone knew all the details about it but they heard about it. So the Obama Administration didn’t tell the public in a successful way. The policy was put into action in June of this year and the point of it is to deport criminal immigrants as high priority rather than every illegal immigrant coming in contact with officials.
According to The New York Times, in the last three years, 400,000 immigrants were deported from this country; however, many of them were not criminals. So now, because they are finding that a lot of them were innocent, criminally, even though they came here illegally, the Obama Administration’s new policy is enacted to deport those immigrants who are criminals.
Another article that just came out yesterday, Monday, November 14, 2011, talked about the policy again being “applied unevenly.” A case that the article talked about where the Administration’s policy was not applied to, stated that Matias Ramos, a UCLA graduate and student activist found himself wearing an “electronic shackle” in September, was then deported to his home country, Argentina. He was given “temporary” social media reprieve and even though he had a clean record and therefore was not a criminal, he was deported even though the Obama Administration’s policy towards immigrant criminal deportation states that he could have remained in the country, he was still deported.
There were a couple of other cases like this one that also happened recently, and that said the immigration policy needs to flourish through the states soon and efficiently so these cases stop and people don’t get deported when they don’t need to be.
The historical significance of this would be that before the policy the racial profiling was going on in the past, whether it was Arizona’s state policy where it was granted to the state officials to demand immigrants for their papers, or the Muslims being denied entry into the country.
Do you agree with the Obama Administration's decision in prioritizing deportation to the criminal illegal immigrants? Why? Also do you think that the activist Matias Ramos deserved deportation under the administration's new rule? Why/Why not? Do you think that the Obama Administration needs to spread the word better so people like Matias doesn't get deported when they are not the top priority?
SOURCES:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/13/us/politics/president-obamas-policy-on-deportation-is-unevenly-applied.html
http://multiamerican.scpr.org/2011/11/obamas-new-deportation-policy-still-being-applied-unevenly/
http://www.truth-out.org/mia-obamas-new-common-sense-immigration-policy/1317131066
I half agree with the Obama Administration's decision. It would benefit our country most to get rid of criminals when they are illegal and most people would agree. On the other hand though I do not think it is fair to the other countries who are getting criminals back instead of just a one time law-breaking illegal immigrant. This can hurt a country if you only send back the bad into it. I do think Matais Ramos deserved to be deported back because he is illegal. This technically also makes him a criminal so although he might not deserve to be deported as much as someone else, he is still guilty of coming here against the law and must pay the consequences. The Obama Administration should spread the word more so that this doesn't happen again, but it isn't a bad thing that it did happen.
ReplyDeleteObama's policy is Very reasonable and I have no issue with it. Obviously, we should focus on illegal immigrants who pose a tangible and legitimate threat to our nation and society, and it gives LEOs an opportunity to be lenient or more lenient to illegal immigrants who have no committed crimes. That said, it is ridiculous not to deport someone who is a known illegal alien. They are breaking the law by being in the country and have no right to say that the law is being enforced unevenly because they are legally here in the first place. Technically, all illegal immigrants have committed a crime by coming here or staying here illegally. I think that there is no problem with the policy and an illegal immigrant has no legal basis to argue for his right to stay in this country illegally, as well he shouldn't.
ReplyDeleteI agree with with Obama's policy completely. I think that this policy shows how important it is to keep illegal immigrants out of our country. It costs a ton of money to put someone in jail and it is bad enough that we are putting people who committed a crime the day they stepped on the United States without being legal. It does not make sense as to why someone who is considered an illegal alien is not deported from our country crime committing or not. When we consider Motais Ramos' situation, he committed a crime but if he was here for a long enough period of time, he should have been considered an American citizen and given the American punishment for wearing an electronic shackle. This policy keeps illegal immigrants out of our country for good. This will protect us from the criminals that are walking our streets and stopping immigrants from coming here illegally because they will have this law as a threat when they decide to immigrate.
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