Financial Times reported that: Seventeen years after fleeing to the U.S. to escape civil war in Guatemala, Rudolfo Mendez is fighting to avoid being deported from his home in North Carolina.
Although granted a work permit and Social Security number on arrival in 1994, his asylum application was denied after he missed a court hearing, and in 1997 Mr. Mendez was issued with a deportation order. "When the order was handed to me, I thought about going back to Guatemala but the situation was still dangerous," he said. Now the 35-year-old hopes to qualify for an exemption that will allow him to remain in the U.S., a hope he shares with 300,000 other people whose pending deportation cases will soon be reviewed.
The Department of Homeland Security will within weeks start separating high priority cases involving criminals it wants to deport from low priority cases it will drop following a June directive that its agencies will exercise discretion in deportation decisions. The move follows criticism of Barack Obama's "tough on enforcement" agenda that has led to the expulsion of large numbers of low-level offenders and people who had committed no crimes at all. The Hispanic community, a key voter base for Mr. Obama in the 2012 election, has been the worst affected.
Mr. Mendez is one of an estimated 11m undocumented immigrants in the U.S. Since 1997, he has worked and paid taxes. Tax collectors are not mandated to report illegals, so many like Mr. Mendez continue to live in the U.S. undetected provided they commit no crime. However, in a renewed crackdown on illegal immigration, Mr. Mendez was arrested in January.
Fears about U.S. illegal immigration have exacerbated in recent years against the backdrop of an uncertain economic climate fueled by global turmoil in markets, an anaemic U.S. growth rate, high unemployment levels and growing anxieties that Mexico's drug war will seep north of the border.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced last month that in the full year to September 2011 it had deported 396,906 people -- the largest in the organization's history. Just over half were criminals.
"President Obama had to show he was tough on enforcement in order to gain Republican support and in his first two years in office he had to counteract the image of being weak," said Ted Alden, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
"He has had to play a balancing act as the administration is also saying they are supporters of the Hispanic community and they would not deport hard-working people. It is difficult to do this and reach the 400,000 target for removals," he added.
A report by the Berkeley Law Center suggests that under Secure Communities -- a deportation scheme adopted by some states in which people charged with state and local offences have their immigration status checked -- 93 per cent of those arrested have been Hispanic, even though they represent only 77 per cent of the undocumented population of the U.S.
About 3,600 U.S. citizens have been mistakenly arrested by ICE through Secure Communities due to databases that had not been updated, according to the Berkeley report.
Introduced by the Bush administration in March 2008, the programme has been extended dramatically under Mr. Obama and ICE plans to implement it nationwide by 2013.
The Obama administration had courted Republicans for support on comprehensive immigration reform, including border enforcement, naturalization and a crackdown on work without permits. But many question why it continues to maintain the same Bush-era deportation targets when hopes of bipartisan co-operation have collapsed.
"They appear to believe that Hispanics will vote for Obama regardless ... and any weakening on enforcement might perhaps jeopardise some independent votes. So there simply is no pressure to push the White House away from the status quo," said Mr. Alden.
Meanwhile, some states have taken it upon themselves to take tough action to secure their borders.
Arizona last April enacted a law that requires immigrants to carry registration documents and empowers police to stop and detain people if there is "reasonable suspicion" they are in the U.S. illegally.
The government argues these laws usurp federal authority to mandate immigration policy and is engaged in lawsuits against Arizona, Alabama, Georgia, Indiana and Utah. Immigration, and the clash of federal versus state powers, will be key themes in next year's election.
According to the 2010 US census, there were 50.5m Hispanics in the U.S. making up 16 per cent of the total population. While Mr. Obama's core support in the Hispanic community remains strong -- a recent poll released by Latino Decisions and impreMedia recorded 49 per cent of Hispanics as certain to vote for Mr. Obama, against 9 per cent certain to vote for a Republican candidate -- the deportation issue is severely testing the relationship.
"Enthusiasm has dampened for President Obama. Immigration was never traditionally a top issue, but over the past two years it is up there with employment. While 74 per cent of the Hispanic population are [already] U.S. citizens, of the rest, the majority have connections to U.S. citizens, either by spouse or child, so these deportations are tearing families apart," said Clarissa Martinez, director of immigration at National Council of La Raza, a Hispanic civil rights and advocacy organization.
Although granted a work permit and Social Security number on arrival in 1994, his asylum application was denied after he missed a court hearing, and in 1997 Mr. Mendez was issued with a deportation order. "When the order was handed to me, I thought about going back to Guatemala but the situation was still dangerous," he said. Now the 35-year-old hopes to qualify for an exemption that will allow him to remain in the U.S., a hope he shares with 300,000 other people whose pending deportation cases will soon be reviewed.
The Department of Homeland Security will within weeks start separating high priority cases involving criminals it wants to deport from low priority cases it will drop following a June directive that its agencies will exercise discretion in deportation decisions. The move follows criticism of Barack Obama's "tough on enforcement" agenda that has led to the expulsion of large numbers of low-level offenders and people who had committed no crimes at all. The Hispanic community, a key voter base for Mr. Obama in the 2012 election, has been the worst affected.
Mr. Mendez is one of an estimated 11m undocumented immigrants in the U.S. Since 1997, he has worked and paid taxes. Tax collectors are not mandated to report illegals, so many like Mr. Mendez continue to live in the U.S. undetected provided they commit no crime. However, in a renewed crackdown on illegal immigration, Mr. Mendez was arrested in January.
Fears about U.S. illegal immigration have exacerbated in recent years against the backdrop of an uncertain economic climate fueled by global turmoil in markets, an anaemic U.S. growth rate, high unemployment levels and growing anxieties that Mexico's drug war will seep north of the border.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced last month that in the full year to September 2011 it had deported 396,906 people -- the largest in the organization's history. Just over half were criminals.
"President Obama had to show he was tough on enforcement in order to gain Republican support and in his first two years in office he had to counteract the image of being weak," said Ted Alden, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
"He has had to play a balancing act as the administration is also saying they are supporters of the Hispanic community and they would not deport hard-working people. It is difficult to do this and reach the 400,000 target for removals," he added.
A report by the Berkeley Law Center suggests that under Secure Communities -- a deportation scheme adopted by some states in which people charged with state and local offences have their immigration status checked -- 93 per cent of those arrested have been Hispanic, even though they represent only 77 per cent of the undocumented population of the U.S.
About 3,600 U.S. citizens have been mistakenly arrested by ICE through Secure Communities due to databases that had not been updated, according to the Berkeley report.
Introduced by the Bush administration in March 2008, the programme has been extended dramatically under Mr. Obama and ICE plans to implement it nationwide by 2013.
The Obama administration had courted Republicans for support on comprehensive immigration reform, including border enforcement, naturalization and a crackdown on work without permits. But many question why it continues to maintain the same Bush-era deportation targets when hopes of bipartisan co-operation have collapsed.
"They appear to believe that Hispanics will vote for Obama regardless ... and any weakening on enforcement might perhaps jeopardise some independent votes. So there simply is no pressure to push the White House away from the status quo," said Mr. Alden.
Meanwhile, some states have taken it upon themselves to take tough action to secure their borders.
Arizona last April enacted a law that requires immigrants to carry registration documents and empowers police to stop and detain people if there is "reasonable suspicion" they are in the U.S. illegally.
The government argues these laws usurp federal authority to mandate immigration policy and is engaged in lawsuits against Arizona, Alabama, Georgia, Indiana and Utah. Immigration, and the clash of federal versus state powers, will be key themes in next year's election.
According to the 2010 US census, there were 50.5m Hispanics in the U.S. making up 16 per cent of the total population. While Mr. Obama's core support in the Hispanic community remains strong -- a recent poll released by Latino Decisions and impreMedia recorded 49 per cent of Hispanics as certain to vote for Mr. Obama, against 9 per cent certain to vote for a Republican candidate -- the deportation issue is severely testing the relationship.
"Enthusiasm has dampened for President Obama. Immigration was never traditionally a top issue, but over the past two years it is up there with employment. While 74 per cent of the Hispanic population are [already] U.S. citizens, of the rest, the majority have connections to U.S. citizens, either by spouse or child, so these deportations are tearing families apart," said Clarissa Martinez, director of immigration at National Council of La Raza, a Hispanic civil rights and advocacy organization.
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