Anthropology essay final

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Targeting Latino men: mass deportation from the USA, 1998–2012 Tanya Golash-Boza Published online: 10 Dec 2014.

To cite this article: Tanya Golash-Boza (2014): Targeting Latino men: mass deportation from the USA, 1998–2012, Ethnic and Racial Studies, DOI: 10.1080/01419870.2015.988739

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Targeting Latino men: mass deportation from the USA, 1998–2012

Tanya Golash-Boza

(Received 16 October 2014; accepted 13 November 2014)

The number of people being removed from the USA on an annual basis is far higher than ever before. The increases in removals since the passage of the 1996 laws have had a disproportionate impact on Mexican and Central American male immigrants. Moreover, the changes made to the laws in 1996 were draconian insofar as they removed judicial discretion in certain removal cases, and the laws were applied retroactively. The raced and gendered disparities in immigration law enforcement are one more instance of institutionalized racism in the USA insofar as these laws primarily harm black and Latino families.

Keywords: Latinos; deportation; racism; gender; immigration policy

Between 1892 and 1997, there were 2.1 million deportations from the USA. In the last fifteen years, there have been nearly twice as many: the sum total of deportations between 1998 and 2012 is over 4.1 million. The current numbers of deportations are unprecedented in the history of the USA (Figure 1).

Social science and legal scholars have analysed the rising number of deportations (Coutin 2000; Hernandez 2008; Brotherton and Barrios 2011; Kanstroom 2012; King, Massoglia, and Uggen 2012; Kretsedemas 2012; Hagan, Eschbach, and Rodriguez 2008; Golash-Boza 2012), yet these studies have paid little attention to one salient aspect of mass deportation: this increase in deportations since 1997 has not affected all groups equally; it primarily involves Latin American and male immigrants. Before getting into the data that show these trends, I will provide a brief overview of the policy changes that led to mass deportation.

The legal context: the 1996 laws and the creation of Department of Homeland Security

Deportations began to increase in 1997 because Congress passed two laws in 1996 that fundamentally changed the rights of all foreign-born people in the USA: the Anti- Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) and the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA). These laws eliminated judicial review of some deportation orders, required mandatory detention for some non- citizens, and dedicated more funds to immigration law enforcement (Fragomen 1997). The 1996 laws led to an increase in the number of deportations for three reasons: (1) they expanded the grounds on which a person could be deported; (2) they narrowed

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Ethnic and Racial Studies, 2014 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2015.988739

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the grounds for appealing a deportation order; and (3) they allocated more funds to immigration law enforcement.

One of the most pernicious aspects of the 1996 laws was the aggravated felony provision. Congress created the idea of an aggravated felony as part of the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988 to provide harsh provisions for non-citizens convicted of murder and drugs and arms trafficking. The definition of aggravated felonies was expanded substantially with the 1990 Immigration Act and the 1996 laws. As well as other violations, this category now includes any crime of violence or theft offence for which the term of imprisonment is at least one year and illicit drug offences. Although the definition of an aggravated felony sounds as if it is referring to severe crimes, crimes such as illegal possession of Xanax and shoplifting have been classified as aggravated felonies and people have faced mandatory detention and deportation as a result (Fragomen 1997). Aggravated felony cases do not require judicial review, meaning that people do not have the right for a judge to take into account the specifics of their case or their ties to the USA. Furthermore, the law has been applied retroactively. This means that any non-citizen charged with a crime at any time during their stay in the USA could be subject to deportation. For example, a person could have come to the USA legally at the age of two, been convicted of attempted arson at age eighteen, and – twenty years later, after the passage of IIRIRA – could be subject to deportation at age thirty-eight. Even adopted children of US citizens have been deported under these laws – in those cases, where parents had failed to naturalize their children before they were eighteen (Morawetz 2000; Fragomen 1997). Only undocumented migrants can be deported on non-criminal grounds, whereas legally present immigrants can only be deported after a criminal conviction. These convictions can be as trivial as marijuana possession. Both criminal and non-criminal deportations have increased since 1997.

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Figure 1. Removals of non-citizens from the USA: 1892–2013. Note: As of 1 April 1997, the government reclassified all exclusion and deportations procedures as ‘Removal proceedings’, but in this article I use the terms deportation and removal interchangeably, as they are used colloquially. Source: DHS, OIS.

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The passage of the 1996 laws resulted in the number of deportees nearly doubling from 70,000 in 1996 to 114,432 in 1997. In 1998, the number of deportees rose to 173,000. The numbers crept slowly up until 2003, when the creation of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) infused more money into immigration law enforcement and 211,000 people were deported. From there, the numbers have continued to rise – peaking at 438,421 in 2013.1

The laws governing deportation have not changed substantially since 1996. The continuing rise in deportations in the twenty-first century is a consequence of massive amounts of money going into immigration law enforcement, particularly since the creation of the DHS. In 2002, in its last year of operation, the total budget for the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) was at an all-time high: $5.6 billion, up from $1.6 billion in 1994 (Golash-Boza 2012). This budget included border enforcement, interior enforcement, detention, removal and citizenship services. In contrast, by 2009, the DHS had allocated $5.6 billion to interior enforcement alone, with another $11 billion going to border enforcement and $2.6 billion to citizenship services (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services). Even if we keep the real-value dollar constant, there has been a substantial increase. Overall, the INS budget of $5.6 billion in 2002 is equivalent to $6.7 billion in 2009 dollars. We can compare this to the $19.3 billion spent by the DHS on these three functions in 2009 – a 288% increase.

The fiscal year 2011 budget for the DHS was $56 billion, 30% of which was directed at immigration law enforcement through Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Patrol. Another 18% of the total went to the US Coast Guard and 5% to US Citizenship and Immigration Services – meaning that over half of the DHS budget was directed at border security and immigration law enforcement.2 To put this $56 billion into perspective, the Department of Education’s fiscal year 2011 budget was $77.8 billion, and the Department of Justice’s $29.2 billion.3 The rise in deportations over the past decade primarily stems from Executive Branch decisions to expand immigration law enforcement as part of the broader project of the War on Terror.

In light of the facts that (1) deportation rates are higher than they ever have been in history; (2) deportation laws are draconian; and (3) the federal government spends more money on immigration law enforcement than all other federal law enforcement agencies combined, it is worthwhile to consider who is targeted by immigration law enforcement.

Most deportees are men

In the data publicly available on the Office of Immigration Statistics (OIS) website, the gender of deportees is not provided. OIS annual reports have not mentioned gender since the late 1990s – although, anomalously, sex ratios of removals were reported in 2012. Scholarly studies of deportation rarely mention gender (Coutin 2000; Hernandez 2008; Brotherton and Barrios 2011; Kanstroom 2012; King, Massoglia, and Uggen 2012; Kretsedemas 2012; Hagan, Eschbach, and Rodriguez 2008; Golash-Boza 2012). Yet, in 2011, 89% of all removals involved men. Moreover, the rise in removals since 1998 almost exclusively affected male non-citizens while the number of females deported has remained stable.4 In 2011,

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53% of undocumented immigrants in the USA were men (Hoefer, Rytina, and Baker 2012).

Whereas there were 44,029 deportations of women in 1998 and 43,781 in 2011, the number of male deportations rose from 138,231 in 1998 to 347,947 in 2011 – a 250% increase (Figure 2). It evident from Figure 2 that since the 1996 policy changes and changes brought about by the War on Terror, there has been an increase in deportations of men, but not of women. More accurately, the 1996 laws led to an initial increase in the number of women deported, but this has remained relatively constant since 1998, whereas the number of men removed has increased steadily since the creation of the DHS in 2003.

Deporting Latin Americans

The tremendous rise in deportations has also affected some national-origin groups more than others. Nearly all of the increase in removals since 1998 involves Mexican and Central American immigrants (Figure 3).

The total increase in deportations from 1998 to 2011 was 227% – from 173,146 to 391,953. Mexican immigrants experienced the largest increase in absolute numbers. Proportionately speaking, however, the only group to experience a larger than average increase between 1998 and 2011 was Central American immigrants: 4.34 times as many were deported in 2011 as in 1998. Notably, the number of European, Asian, Caribbean and African deportations remained flat. These data render it clear that the law and policy changes in 1996 and 2003 have not affected all national-origin groups equally.

Overall, deportees are disproportionately sent to the western hemisphere. In 2011, while only 84% of unauthorized immigrants in the USA came from the western

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Male

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Figure 2. Removals of non-citizens from USA by sex, 1998–2012. Source: DHS, ENFORCE Alien Removal Module (EARM), January 2012, Enforcement Integrated Database (EID) December 2011.

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hemisphere, 97.5% of all deportees were sent to the Americas, with only 2.5% going to Europe, Asia and Africa (Hoefer, Rytina, and Baker 2012). These numbers reveal that Latin Americans face disproportionately high rates of deportation (Figure 4).

Why deportation trends matter for scholars and policymakers

Deportations are at a historic high and certain groups are targeted more than others. These facts have relevance for scholars who study deportation. For example, a recent study by sociologists King, Massoglia, and Uggen (2012) examined criminal deportations between 1907 and 2005. They found that, between 1941 and 1986, criminal deportations correlated well with unemployment rates, yet that, post-1986, the relationship between criminal deportation and unemployment was considerably weaker. Future considerations of the relationship between unemployment and criminal deportation should keep in mind that nearly all criminal deportees are Latin American and Caribbean male immigrants. Given the gendered divisions of labour in the workforce, it may be more useful to compare deportation rates with rates of male unemployment rather than with overall unemployment.

Social scientists have paid relatively little attention to mass deportation, yet it is a topic that merits our interest. More detailed analyses are needed to help us understand why the USA has deported unprecedented numbers of people since 1997, and why nearly all deportees have been Latin American men. These analyses must pay

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Figure 3. Removals by region of non-citizens from USA, 1998–2011. Source: DHS, OIS.

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attention to the national origins and genders of people targeted by mass deportation. Future studies should also consider the consequences of mass deportation, as exemplified by the work of Joanna Dreby (2012).

A recent investigative report (Applied Research Center 2011) revealed that there are currently over 5,000 children in foster care because their parents had been detained or deported. These 5,000 children are just the tip of the iceberg in a consideration of the collateral consequences of mass deportation. Future studies of the consequences of mass deportation should also take into account the gendered effects of these policies – when men are deported, they often leave women and children behind. In fact, a recent study revealed that today, nearly a quarter of deportees are parents of US citizens, as compared to just 8% of deportees between 1998 and 2007 (Applied Research Center 2011; Wessler 2011).

In my interviews with 147 deportees in Guatemala, the Dominican Republic, Brazil and Jamaica, I found that the deportation of a father often means the removal of the primary breadwinner from the family. Thus, even when deportation does not lead to children ending up in foster care, it very often leads to children growing up in poverty. The gendered and raced consequences of US deportation policy are severe and will have long-term effects on this country.

I have not yet seen a study that fully explains the gendered and racialized dynamics of mass deportation. However, my qualitative research with deportees reveals that nearly all deportations from the interior of the USA occur after an encounter with local law enforcement. It is highly likely that this fact explains why Latin American men are the primary targets of deportation insofar as Latinos are often racially profiled

Mexico, 293,966

Central America, 71,823

South America, 8,863

Caribbean, 5,826 Asia, 5,060 Europe, 3,131 Africa, 1,602 Canada, 1,096 Other, 586

Figure 4. Region of origin of non-citizens removed from USA. Source: DHS, OIS.

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for ‘driving while brown’. Nevertheless, further research and more data are needed in order to understand more fully how this programme of mass deportation is being executed.

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to Zulema Valdez for her useful comments.

Notes

1. ‘Immigration Enforcement Actions: 2013’ http://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/ ois_enforcement_ar_2013.pdf 2. ‘FY 2011 Budget in Brief: Department of Homeland Security’ http://www.dhs.gov/ xlibrary/assets/budget_bib_fy2011.pdf 3. ‘Department of Education Fiscal Year 2011 Budget: Summary and Background Informa- tion’ http://www2.ed.gov/about/overview/budget/budget11/summary/11summary.pdf. ‘Depart- ment of Justice FY 2011 Budget’ http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2010/February/10-ag-109.html 4. The OIS provided me with removal data by sex between 1998 and 2011. I requested data going back to 1892 and am still waiting to hear if I am able to obtain more historical data. I acquired the 2012 data from the OIS published report ‘Immigration Enforcement Actions: 2012’ http://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/ois_enforcement_ar_2012_1.pdf

References

Applied Research Center. 2011. “Shattered Families: The Perilous Intersection of Immigration Enforcement and the Child Welfare System.” November 2.

Brotherton, David C., and Luis Barrios. 2011. Banished to the Homeland: Dominican Deportees and Their Stories of Exile. New York: Columbia University Press.

Coutin, Susan. 2000. Legalizing Moves: Salvadoran Immigrants Struggling for U.S. Residency. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan.

Dreby, Joanna. 2012. “The Burden of Deportation on Children in Mexican Immigrant Families.” Journal of Marriage and Family 74 (4): 829–845.

Fragomen, Austin T. 1997. “The Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996: An Overview.” International Migration Review 31 (2): 438–460. doi:10.2307/ 2547227.

Golash-Boza, Tanya. 2012. Immigration Nation: Raids, Detentions, and Deportations in Post- 9/11 America. Boulder, CO: Paradigm.

Hagan, Jacqueline, Karl Eschbach, and Nestor Rodriguez. 2008. “U.S. Deportation Policy, Family Separation, and Circular Migration.” International Migration Review 42 (1): 64–88. doi:10.1111/j.1747-7379.2007.00114.x.

Hernandez, David. 2008. “Pursuant to Deportation: Latinas/os and Immigrant Detention.” Latino Studies 6 (1–2): 35–63.

Hoefer, Michael, Nancy Rytina, and Bryan Baker. 2012. “Estimates of the Unauthorized Immigrant Population Residing in the United States: January 2011.” Office of Immigra- tion Statistics of the US Department of Homeland Security. Accessed September 12, 2104. https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/ois_ill_pe_2011.pdf.

Kanstroom, Daniel. 2012. Aftermath: Deportation Law and the New American Diaspora. New York: Oxford University Press.

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King, Ryan D., Michael Massoglia, and Christopher Uggen. 2012. “Employment and Exile: U.S. Criminal Deportations, 1908–2005.” American Journal of Sociology 117 (6): 1786–1825. doi:10.1086/664824.

Kretsedemas, Philip. 2012. The Immigration Crucible: Transforming Race, Nation, and the Limits of the Law. New York: Columbia University Press.

Morawetz, Nancy. 2000. “Understanding the Impact of the 1996 Deportation Laws and the Limited Scope of Proposed Reforms.” Harvard Law Review 113 (8): 1936–1962.

Wessler, Seth. 2011. “U.S. Deports 46K Parents with Citizen Kids in Just Six Months.” Colorlines, November 3. Accessed March 14, 2013. http://colorlines.com/archives/2011/11/ shocking_data_on_parents_deported_with_citizen_children.html.

Tanya Golash-Boza is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of California. ADDRESS: Department of Sociology, University of California, 5200 North Lake Road, Merced, CA 95343, USA. Email: [email protected]

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