Human Rights Watch: Detained Immigrants Increasingly Hit with Criminal Charges Kevin Douglas Grant - GlobalPost
go to original May 22, 2013

Male undocumented immigrants rest at the US Border Patrol detainee processing center on April 11, 2013 in McAllen, Texas. (John Moore/AFP/Getty Images)

The US government now brings federal criminal charges against undocumented immigrants at an exponentially higher rate than it did 10 years ago, finds a Human Rights Watch report released Wednesday.

The result is a much high number of detained immigrants spending time in jail before deportation and for many, exclusion from future legalization under immigration reform legislation passed by the Senate Judiciary Committee Tuesday night and slated to move to the Senate floor in early June.

"President Obama's administration has framed criminal deportees as dangerous outsiders, and the Senate immigration bill incorporates this understanding of the issue," wrote legal scholar Beth Caldwell on Al Jazeera's website last week. "But most of the so-called 'criminal aliens' who have been deported under Obama's presidency are neither dangerous nor are they outsiders."

Between 2002 and 2012, the number of people charged with felony illegal reentry increased fivefold. The number charged with misdemeanor illegal entry annually jumped fifteenfold, government data shows. At the same time, those being charged with crimes now tend to have less serious criminal histories — including 27 percent who have no prior criminal history.

Read the rest at GlobalPost

We invite you to add your charity or supporting organizations' news stories and coming events to PVAngels so we can share them with the world. Do it now!