Blog 8 Napolitano: Deportation reviews to begin shortly

It was announced this week by Janet Napolitano, Homeland Security Secretary, that the Obama administration will start reviewing over 300,000 deportation cases. They will then make the decision whether to deport the individuals or allow them to stay in the United States by putting them into categories of “high priority” or low priority, depending on their criminal record and the threat that the administration believes that they pose to the country. She also stated that in the next few weeks they will begin reviewing a small number of pending cases and then eventually expand the process further. Highest priority will be placed on the cases that include an individual that is a threat to national security and those that are low priority will be “administratively closed”. The ways that a case could be closed would depend on several factors, the amount of time they have spent in the United States, if there was time served in the military, they have a spouse or child, and if they came to this country as a child. While Democratic officials say that is a better more practical approach to this issue, Republicans are speaking out saying that closing cases would be giving “amnesty” to those individuals. Republicans also have stated that they need more information about the policy, one area being what will happen to illegal immigrants that have criminal records as well as the outcome of the people whose cases were closed. However, Napolitano said that the number of deportations has increased during the Obama administration and 55% of the deportations last year had criminal records.

It is apparent that this is a problem not only in the U.S. but around the world, one being Great Britain who recently addressed the problem of having illegal immigrants who have criminal records and are facing deportation. The Obama administration’s effort seems to be a more practical approach to dealing with this issue, because not all illegal immigrants in this country are illegal. It is a step in the right direction to make more a more sensible way to address immigration.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/10/19/politics/napolitano-deportation-reviews/index.html?iref=storysearch