March 10, 2014

Washington D.C. – Today, the Immigration Policy Center releases two publications. One highlights the programs and policies that have vastly expanded U.S. deportations over the past two decades. The second dissects the removal numbers from Fiscal Year 2013 and puts them into context.

The first fact sheet, The Growth of the U.S. Deportation Machine, shows how the U.S. has rapidly expanded enforcement programs since 1996—programs that now run on auto-pilot and are removing noncitizens at a record pace.
The second fact sheet, Misplaced Priorities, shows how, despite the Administration’s claims that they are deporting the most dangerous, high-priority individuals, the system does in fact focus primarily on immigrants with low-level or no criminal histories at all.

Taken together, these two publications clearly illustrate the federal government’s enforcement-first approach to immigration control. The end result has been a relentless campaign of imprisonment and expulsion not of terrorist operatives or violent criminals, but noncitizens who have committed immigration violations and minor crimes. While this campaign precedes the Obama administration by many years, it has grown immensely during his tenure in the White House.
To view the publications in their entirety see:

• The Growth of the U.S. Deportation Machine: More Immigrants are being “Removed” from the United States than Ever Before (IPC Fact Check, March 2014)

• Misplaced Priorities: Most Immigrants Deported by ICE in 2013 Were a Threat to No One (IPC Fact Check, March 2014)
Read a blog that summarizes the findings at:www.ImmigrationImpact.com: