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Report Shows How US Drug War and Deportation Machine Are Destroying Lives
"It's imperative that the U.S. government revises federal law to match current state-based drug policy reforms to end and prevent the immense human suffering being inflicted in the name of the drug war."
Thousands of people are deported from the United States each year for past drug offenses that often aren't even crimes anymore under evolving state narcotics laws, a report published Monday revealed.
The 91-page Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Drug Policy Alliance (DPA) report—titled Disrupt and Vilify: The War on Immigrants Inside the U.S. War on Drugs—highlights the experiences of people deported years or even decades after they committed drug offenses.
One of those immigrants, Natalie Burke of Jamaica, was convicted in 2003 of cannabis-related offenses but pardoned last August by Democratic Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs, who acted on the unanimous recommendation of a state clemency board, which found that Burke was a victim of domestic violence who was "lured" into trafficking marijuana.
However, according to the report:
She cannot move on with her life because U.S. immigration authorities are trying to deport her, even though marijuana is now legal in Arizona and she has a pardon...
Natalie explained that one day in 2009, her probation officer asked her to come into the Tucson office to fill out some paperwork. Her son, who was in fifth grade at the time, waited for her outside in the parking lot. Natalie never came back to him that day. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers took her directly to an immigration detention center because her conviction made her deportable from the United States.
"Even with a hard-won gubernatorial pardon, and even in a state where marijuana is now legal, ICE is still trying to deport Natalie," the report adds. "She continues to fight back and is currently pursuing new legal arguments based on the pardon."
Burke is far from alone. Analyzing data from 2002-20, the report's authors found approximately 500,000 deportations of people whose most serious offense was drug-related. More than 150,000 of those deportations were the result of convictions for drug use or possession, including 47,000 for marijuana—which is now legal for recreational or medicinal use in a majority of U.S. states.
"The uniquely American combination of the drug war and deportation machine work hand in hand to target, exclude, and punish noncitizens for minor offenses—or in some states legal activity—such as marijuana possession," DPA federal affairs director Maritza Perez Medina said in a statement.
"This report underscores that punitive federal drug laws separate families, destabilize communities, and terrorize noncitizens, all while overdose deaths have risen and drugs have become more potent and available," she added. "It's imperative that the U.S. government revises federal law to match current state-based drug policy reforms to end and prevent the immense human suffering being inflicted in the name of the drug war."
The publication notes that "of all immigrants deported with criminal offenses, people with drug-related offenses had lived in the U.S. for the longest periods of time."
This has resulted in the deportation of immigrants who have lived in the United States since childhood and U.S. military veterans being separated from their families.
The report's authors interviewed some people living under the threat of deportation who have become parents or even grandparents of U.S. citizens during their time in the country.
"I'm not able to live and operate without fear because I'm not a citizen," one California resident convicted for marijuana and paraphernalia possession said in the report. "I've lived here for more than 20 years now. This is my home. I have children here. I want to be a citizen, and I'm making every effort to do that. But it seems like that's not going to be possible."
"Congress should reform immigration law to ensure immigrants with criminal convictions, including for drug offenses, are not subject to 'one-size-fits-all' deportations."
HRW immigration and border policy director Vicki Gaubeca said: "Why should parents or grandparents be deported away from children in their care for decades-old drug offenses, including offenses that would be legal today? If drug conduct is not a crime under state law, it should not make someone deportable."
The report also highlights cases of legal permanent residents lawfully employed in states' marijuana industries who cannot become citizens because, due to enduring federal criminalization of cannabis, they are considered to lack "good moral character," and immigrant women who have been sexually abused by corrections officers who know their victims would soon be deported.
HRW and DPA asserted that "Congress should reform immigration law to ensure immigrants with criminal convictions, including for drug offenses, are not subject to 'one-size-fits-all' deportations."
"Instead," the authors argue, "immigration judges should be given the discretion to make individualized decisions. As an important first step, Congress should impose a statute of limitations on deportations, so people can move beyond old offenses and get on with their lives."
100+ Groups Urge DHS to Condemn Abbott's 'Brazen, Cruel, and Deadly' Operation Lone Star
"To date your agencies have not forcefully disavowed the program or acknowledged the deep harms of Texas' racist and unlawful enforcement operation."
A coalition of more than 100 advocacy groups on Thursday implored the Biden administration to "take decisive action to condemn" and "cease involvement" in Operation Lone Star, the deadly anti-immigrant campaign launched in 2021 by Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott.
In a letter to U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and senior Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials, the 108 groups implored the administration "to investigate and end any collaboration" between Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agencies and Operation Lone Star (OLS).
"In the two years since Texas initiated OLS, we have repeatedly called on DHS and CBP to cease all forms of cooperation with the program," the letter states. "Nevertheless, to date your agencies have not forcefully disavowed the program or acknowledged the deep harms of Texas' racist and unlawful enforcement operation."
"Federal inaction has emboldened Texas officials to employ increasingly brazen, cruel, and deadly enforcement tactics that have caused family separation, death, and daily violations of the civil and human rights of Black and Brown migrants," the signers added.
As the National Immigration Project—which led the letter—noted, these tactics include "pushing people back into the Rio Grande, denying migrants water in extreme heat, and installing life-threatening buoy and razor-wire barriers in and around the river."
"Advocates also report that Texas officers have started using OLS arrests to separate fathers from their families, seemingly with the cooperation of Border Patrol agents," the group added. "These conscience-shocking tactics will only continue in the absence of a decisive federal response."
Last month, the U.S. Justice Department sued Texas over the floating barrier, claiming it "poses threats to navigation and public safety and presents humanitarian concerns," and "has prompted diplomatic protests by Mexico and risks damaging U.S. foreign policy."
National Immigration Project executive director Sirine Shebaya said in a statement that "in recent months, we've seen Gov. Greg Abbott employ new and increasingly dangerous and deadly tactics as part of his illicit Operation Lone Star program."
"The federal government has a clear responsibility to not only cease collaboration with Texas officials on Operation Lone Star but also to push back on this unthinkable cruelty," she continued.
"Left unchecked, these hateful policies and inhumane treatment will only continue to escalate," Shebaya added. "As a nationwide membership organization, we will continue working with our members and partners in Texas and across the country to put an end to these horrific human and civil rights abuses."