A banner drops from a hotel window while President Obama holds a fundraiser inside. Jacek Boczarski/Demotix. All Rights Reserved
In 1996, two laws were passed that dramatically changed deportation practices in the United States. Since the implementation of these laws in 1997—the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, and the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act—over five million people have been deported from the United States. That’s over twice the total of all deportations that took place prior to 1997, when people facing deportation had many more options for appeal. Although immigration reform is not on the immediate political agenda, past proposals have not included a recommendation to overturn the 1996 laws.
It is these laws, however, which lie at the heart of current problems. They transformed deportation from a relatively rare practice into an everyday function of immigration law enforcement. Any non-citizen in the United States, even a legal permanent resident, even the adopted child of a US citizen, has become vulnerable to deportation. For some adopted children, youthful indiscretions could result in being severed from the only families they have known. John Gaul, for example, was deported to Thailand at age 19 after being convicted of car theft, despite being the adopted child of US citizen parents.
