Executive Director
Center for Migration Studies
CMS RESEARCH DOCUMENTS TRUMP’S “MALICIOUS INCOMPETENCE” — “Mass Deportation Strategy” Is As Stupid As It Is Cruel — Removing Most Of Those Already Here Without Documents Would Have A Huge NEGATIVE Impact On America!
The New York Times reported that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) will soon begin conducting a large-scale enforcement action aimed at those with final removal orders, but that “might detain immigrants who happened to be on the scene, even though they were not targets of the raids.” The Center for Migration Studies (CMS) opposes mass deportations because of the immense cost to families, communities, and the US economy. According to data from the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) at Syracuse University, “the vast majority (58%) of individuals in ICE custody June 30 [2018] had no criminal record. An even larger proportion—four out of five—either had no record, or had only committed a minor offense such as a traffic violation.” CMS recommends deprioritizing the arrest and removal of long-term residents, persons with US family members, and those without criminal records or with only minor offenses. Here are two of CMS’s recent reports about the effects of deportation.
Mass Deportations Would Impoverish US Families and Create Immense Social Costs In this paper for the Journal on Migration and Human Security, Donald Kerwin and Robert Warren offer a demographic analysis of the potential impact on US families and children of large-scale deportation of US undocumented residents. Here are some of the key findings:
- Removing undocumented residents from mixed-status households would reduce median household income from $41,300 to $22,000, a drop of $19,300, or 47 percent, which would plunge millions of US families into poverty.
- If just one-third of the US-born children of deported undocumented residents remained in the United States following a mass deportation program, which is a very low estimate, the cost of raising those children through their minority would total $118 billion.
- 2.9 million undocumented residents were 14 years old or younger when they were brought to the United States.
- About 1.2 million, or 23 percent, of the 5.3 million households that have undocumented residents have mortgages.
Communities in Crisis: Interior Removals and Their Human Consequences
With the Kino Border Initiative (KBI) and the Office of Justice and Ecology (OJE) of the Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United States, CMS studied both the quantitative and qualitative effects of deportation and surveyed 133 deportees, as well as interviewed 20 family members and other persons affected by deportation. Here are some key findings:
- More than half (56 percent) of those surveyed first entered the country as minors (below age 18), and 21 percent below age 10.
- Twenty-six percent had been US homeowners.
- Respondents identified a range of close family members who depended on them financially prior to their deportation, including their mothers (72 percent), fathers (57 percent), and siblings (26 percent). Seventy-eight percent had US citizen children.
- Roughly one-fourth of survey respondents reported spending no time in criminal custody and 22.6 percent spent a week or less prior to their deportation. However, 17.3 percent spent more than one year.
“My 14-year-old son wants to take on his dad’s responsibilities. Now he wants to go to work with his uncles. He asked them for work, but he doesn’t have the physical ability or age to work in construction, which was his dad’s occupation,” said a mother of three US citizen children and wife of detained immigrant who was interviewed for the report.
READ THE REPORT.DESCARGAR EL REPORTE [ESPAÑOL].
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Notwithstanding Trump & his White Nationalist propagandists, facts still matter in the immigration debate. Download and read these CMS reports at the above links and find out the truth about Trump’s “maliciously incompetent” immigration and human rights policies.
PWS
07-12-19