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Since Donald Trump became president of the United States, immigrants who have lived longer in the United States and established deep roots have increasingly become targets for deportation.
Over the month of March, four in ten deportation cases filed in immigration court involved people who had been in the US for two years or more, and fully two in ten involved people who had been in the US for five years or more, according to new data released by the research center TRAC. By contrast, only one deportation case filed in ten involved new arrivals. Most people apprehended outside of the border region have the right to see an immigration judge, as opposed to those deported from the border.
Since people apprehended in the interior of the country are more likely to be living in the United States, these numbers are consistent with a previously-reported 40 percent increase in interior arrests in 2017. They show a big change from as recently as the month of December 2016 – the last month of the Obama administration -- when three-quarters of defendants in deportation proceedings then being filed were new arrivals to the US. Only six percent had been living in the US for two years or more. TRAC’s calculations show a sharp uptick in the average length of stay of people being brought before deportation court starting with the implementation of President Trump’s immigration executive orders in early 2017.
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