Stats detail deportation of parents who have American-born children

During the first six months of last year, the federal government deported  more than 46,000 parents who claimed their children are U.S. citizens, according  to a new report that has raised concerns about what happens to children after  their parents are expelled.

An additional 21,860 parents of U.S.-citizen children were ordered out of the  country but may not have left, according to the Immigration and Customs  Enforcement report to Congress last week.

The report, which reflects statistics from January through June 2011, is the  first time ICE has released detailed information on the number of parents of  U.S.-citizen children who have been deported. The agency was directed by  Congress in 2010 to begin collecting the data.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Wednesday  that she was concerned about U.S.-citizen children whose parents have been  deported. But she said the government has increased its emphasis on deporting  immigrants with criminal convictions, and the majority of the parent  deportations fell into that category.

“The number one concern all of us should have is, `Where are the children?  What`s going on with the children?` ” Napolitano said during a meeting with  reporters and editors at The Arizona Republic. “But the plain fact of the  matter is, having a child in and of itself does not bestow citizenship.”

A 2009 report by the Department of Homeland Security`s Inspector General  estimated that more than 100,000 parents of U.S.-born children had been deported  between 1998 and 2007.

The large number of parent deportations alarmed some members of Congress and  immigrant advocates, prompting officials of President Barack Obama`s  administration to point out that the removals took place before a new policy  took effect in the second half of last year. That policy directs ICE agents and  prosecutors to to focus more attention on deporting dangerous criminals and use  discretion to allow some illegal immigrants, including those with U.S.-citizen  children, to stay in the country if they have not committed crimes.

Immigration-enforcement advocates, however, said the report was intended to  create support for Obama`s goal of allowing illegal immigrants to remain in the  U.S. and eventually gain legal status by generating sympathy for their  children.

ICE statistics show that 74 percent of the 46,486 parents of U.S.-citizen  children deported had been convicted of crimes. Another 13 percent had been  previously removed from the country, and 4 percent were fugitives — immigrants  who failed to comply with deportation orders.

“We made a big point of putting some real law-enforcement priorities into ICE  so that their focus is on those with criminal convictions, repeat offenders,  fugitives and those we pick up right at the border before they`ve had an  opportunity to get into the interior of the country,” Napolitano said.

The report could increase concerns among some politically important Latino  voters over the record numbers of deportations that have taken place under Obama  and his failure to deliver comprehensive immigration reform, including a  legalization program for millions of illegal immigrants.

Members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus condemned the deportations,  saying they are tearing families apart.

“This report is the latest example of the terrible toll our broken  immigration system is taking on families,” U.S. Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard,  D-Calif., said in a prepared statement. She requested the report. “We can`t  continue to claim to value families while deporting parents in the tens of  thousands.”

Roybal-Allard cited a 2011 report by the Applied Research Center, a liberal  organization, that said 5,100 children in the U.S. were living in foster care  after their parents were deported.

Laura Vazquez, immigration legislative analyst at the National Council of La  Raza, a Latino and immigrant advocacy group in Washington, D.C., said ICE should  not be deporting parents convicted of minor crimes.

ICE did not provide a breakdown of the types of crimes committed by the  deported parents of U.S.-citizen children.

An analysis of ICE statistics shows that the 46,486 parents of U.S.-citizen  children deported during the first six months of 2011 represented 22 percent of  the overall 211,167 people ICE deported during that time period.

The report said that 1,616 of the 21,860 parents of U.S.-citizen children  ordered deported during the first six months of 2011 were from the Phoenix  area.

Gerald Burns, a Chandler immigration lawyer who is president of the Arizona  chapter of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, said he agreed the  government should be deporting immigrants who have committed violent crimes,  regardless of whether they have U.S.-citizen children. But he said the majority  of the cases he sees in court involve parents convicted of minor crimes,  including using false papers to work.

He said the majority of U.S.-citizen children whose parents are deported  remain in the U.S. with other relatives, or leave the country with their  parents.

When parent breadwinners are deported, it it puts an added strain on those  left behind, and in some “extreme cases,” he said, the children wind up in  foster care.

“When you take children away from parents, of course there is an effect on  their development and on their mental health,” Burns said.

What`s more, older siblings often must step in to care for younger children  when a parent is deported, limiting their own opportunities to succeed, Burns  said.

Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, a  Washington, D.C., research organization that favors tougher immigration  policies, said the deportation of large numbers of parents of U.S. citizen  children is the result of the government`s past failure to adequately enforce  immigration laws.

He said the report showed the longer illegal immigrants are allowed to stay,  the more likely they are to have children born in this country, he said.

“If we had been more conscientious about deporting them earlier, then a lot  of (the children) would have been born in Mexico” not the U.S., Krikorian  said.

Krikorian also said he believes the report was a political ploy aimed at  gaining support for Obama`s efforts to let more illegal immigrants remain in the  United States through his new deportation policy in the short term and  eventually through immigration reforms that would allow illegal immigrants to  gain legal status.

“He is trying to create support for his administrative amnesty where parents  of U.S. kids are allowed to stay,” Krikorian said.

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