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WASHINGTON — Although immigrants in the U.S. illegally represent a fraction of Oregon’s population, immigration-related offenses constitute the second-highest category for prosecution in Oregon’s federal courts, trailing only drug crimes in number.
Almost one in six federal prosecutions initiated in Oregon in fiscal year 2014 has been for immigration-related charges, with illegal re-entry by far the most common charge, according to Department of Justice figures collected by the The Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University.
Nationwide, immigration-related offenses accounted for more than half of all federal prosecutions initiated in April, the last month TRAC data was available. During that month, the Department of Homeland Security referred to U.S. Attorney’s offices almost twice as many cases resulting in prosecutions as the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Drug Enforcement Agency, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the Defense Department combined.
Illegal re-entry constituted the top criminal offense nationwide, just as it had a year earlier and four years before that, according to TRAC figures.
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