The Obama administration set new priorities for immigration enforcement back in 2014, announcing that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) would focus its efforts on deporting convicted criminals, aliens who pose threats to national security, and migrants from Central America, who have arrived in the U.S. in record numbers in recent years. Nonetheless, DHS continues to charge many undocumented immigrants, many of whom have committed only minor offenses or, in some cases, no offenses at all, with deportation. This has continued to occur at record levels during the Obama administration, despite the fact that a DHS spokesperson has reiterated that individuals who have committed no crimes, have lived in the U.S. for years, and who are raising or have raised their families in the U.S. According to a recent New York Times article, DHS deported over 235,000 people in 2015. Throughout the Obama administration, over 2.4 million people have been deported, which is more than under any president’s administration in U.S. history. Just during the months of May and June, 2016, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced that it had arrested 331 immigrants in the states of Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, Kentucky, Kansas, and Missouri alone. Given the large number of deportations in recent years, it is inevitable that non-priority immigrants have been swept up in the net of mass deportation in the United States. For instance, the article details the story of a Wisconsin man who, caught up in an immigration raid in 2006, pled guilty to a low-level felony of identity theft for mistakenly working under a false name at a local factory. Ten years later, after raising two daughters with his wife, the man was arrested by ICE and charged with deportation. With his wife in treatment for kidney cancer, deportation for this couple could very well mean a much shorter life for his wife. While ICE has arrested some serious criminals in recent months, sticking clearly to its priorities of protecting national security and removing criminal perpetrators, ICE simultaneously arrested a 19-year-old boy who was headed to high school. He had entered the U.S. as an unaccompanied minor and sought asylum from Honduras after the murder of two close relatives. However, after missing an asylum hearing and becoming a legal adult, he now faces removal charges. At Landerholm Immigration, A.P.C., we know how to guide you through your deportation proceedings and work toward avoiding deportation altogether. Our experienced California deportation defense lawyers know the ins and outs of federal immigration law and how best to defend you in your deportation case. We know how to identify all of the defenses that are available to you, based on the facts of your case, and obtain the support needed to support those defenses. Call our office today and learn what the attorneys of Landerholm Immigration, A.P.C., can do to help you and your family through this difficult time in your life.
