The separation of families is one of the consequences of the current immigration system. (Natassia Bonyanpour/Borderzine.com)

Felony deportations decline as ICE officers resist former chief’s 2010 directive

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Editor’s note: This story was previously published on the Chicago Reporter. In 2010, the head of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency told his staff to focus on deporting the most dangerous and violent undocumented immigrants. But an investigation by The Chicago Reporter found little change in the percentage of these deportations since then—nationally and in the agency’s Midwest region, which includes Chicago. John Morton, who stepped down as director of the agency this past summer, issued the directive in a June 30, 2010 memo. Yet between 2010 and 2012, the number of people removed from the country who committed a serious felony or violent crime—what officials call the “priority 1” category—actually decreased slightly from 9.5 to 8.7 percent, according to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement data analyzed by the Reporter.

ICE reports precipitous decline in deportation proceedings following Morton’s memorandum

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By Griselda Nevárez

A 33% drop in deportation proceedings initiated by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) during the first three months of this fiscal year reflect recent Obama Administration efforts to prioritize those with criminal records, according to a report by Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC). From October through December, ICE filed 39,331 deportation cases to immigration courts across the country — down from the 58,639 filings recorded a year ago. Filings are usually low this time of year but the 33% falloff is unheard of, said TRAC co-director Susan Long. “You usually see a small drop — maybe 10% — but 33% is huge,” Long, an associate professor of managerial statistics, told Hispanic Link News Service. The decrease, she said, may have been caused by steps ICE has been taking to implement the use of prosecutorial discretion outlined by agency director John Morton in a June 17 memorandum.