NYT FOIA Request Findings: Upsurge in Deportations Following Minor Offenses

Contributed by Aaron Hall, Partner

The Obama administration has publicly professed to be focusing deportation resources on “criminals, gang bangers, people who are hurting the community,” and not on students or “folks who are here just because they’re trying to figure out how to feed their families.”

But a New York Times analysis of internal government records obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request shows that two-thirds of the 2 million deportees during the Obama presidency had only committed minor infractions, including traffic violations, or had no criminal record at all.

The largest increase under Obama’s presidency from that of President Bush has been the quadrupling of those deported whose most serious offense was a traffic violation.  The Department of Homeland Security under President Obama has also more than doubled the use of expedited removal proceedings and reinstatements where the noncitizen is deported without the right to a hearing and cut back the number of people caught trying to cross the Mexican border illegally who are allowed to return voluntarily without a formal deportation on their record.