Mexican and Central American Immigrant Rights; Local Justice Struggles in a Global City

Department of Justice investigation in Alamance County, North Carolina, found that the sheriff had instructed deputies to “go out there and get me some of those taco eaters” by targeting Latinos in traffic stops and other law enforcement activities. In 2014, independent monitors at a Customs and Border Protection checkpoint in Arivaca, Arizona, just north of the U.S.-Mexico border, found that vehicle occupants who appeared to be Latino were 26 times more likely to be asked to show identification than white-looking vehicle occupants, who are frequently waved through the checkpoint.Īnd in 2012, a U.S. In 2013 a federal judge ruled that police in Maricopa County, Arizona, were racial profiling Latinos in traffic stops that targeted immigrants. The Immigration and Nationality Act says immigrants may be deported for violating a long list of criminal and administrative laws.īut evidence suggests that Mexicans and other Latinos are sometimes targeted for arrest based on their race or ethnicity. Not all deportations violate immigrants’ civil rights. unlawfully as children – became subject to deportation when Trump in September 2017 rescinded the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which gave them temporary protection from deportation. interior in 2015 were Mexican, the most recent year that such detailed deportation data are available.Īnother 550,000 young Mexican American “Dreamers” – immigrants who were brought to the U.S. Roughly 70% of immigrants deported from the U.S.

citizens.īased on these figures, we found, Immigration and Customs Enforcement – or ICE, the agency that carries out the nation’s immigration laws – arrests Mexican immigrants at levels that are disproportionate to their share of the unauthorized immigrant population. are either lawful permanent residents or dual nationals who are naturalized U.S. The other 6.3 million Mexicans in the U.S.

population.Ībout 5 million of them are unauthorized immigrants, meaning Mexicans make up just under half of the 10.5 million undocumented immigrants in the country. Discrimination and deportationĪn estimated 11.3 million people born in Mexico now live in the United States – 3% of the total U.S.

All paint a troubling picture about the rule of law in the United States and the challenges facing America’s largest immigrant group.

Mexican and Central American Immigrant Rights; Local Justice Struggles in a Global City