President Obama has been involved in decreasing the amount of immigrants who are deported. Obama has been active in facilitating a change in current immigration laws. Obama has faced backlash from a number of California minorities, who claim that immigrants have been deported at extraordinary rates.
In spite of the decrease in deportations, approximately 1.93 million individuals have been deported for non-serious reasons. Republicans are not in agreement with new immigration laws, which has put reconditioning the laws at a stand still. Critics claim that a recent immigration law that provides unregistered immigrants opportunities for citizenship, would in fact, increase the amount of prison inmates to an additional 14,000 on a yearly basis. A number of prison facilities that house immigrants are privately owned.
Privately owned prisons stand to gain financially from revenue collected. One company, in particular, earns 17 percent of their revenue from deportations. Due to changes from the Obama administration as of 2011, deportations decreased. Instead of conducting business sweeps in an attempt to apprehend unregistered immigrants, an ICE director has deterred immigration representatives from detaining those who have not committed serious crimes.
Understandably, illegal immigrants can face deportation if they have been accused of a serious crimes. Even those who have not committed serious crimes have faced deportation and have been forced to spend an undetermined amount of time behind bars awaiting a hearing. If the immigration laws change, most illegal immigrants will be able to obtain citizenship. California immigrants whose rights were violated may explore their legal options in an effort to seek justice.
Source: Business Week, Deportations Drop as Obama Pushes for New Immigration Law, Michael C. Bender, Dec. 17, 2013
