Most of the undocumented immigrants deported under the Obama administration committed minor offenses or had no criminal record at all, a practice which contradicts the president's claim the government only deports serious offenders.
President Barack Obama has claimed the government goes after undocumented immigrants who are "criminals, gangbangers, people who are hurting the community, not after students, not after folks who are here just because they're trying to figure out how to feed their families," according to The New York Times.
According to government documents reviewed by the newspaper, the Obama administration deported nearly 2 million undocumented immigrants since the president first took office. Of those deported, 67 percent engaged in minor offenses, such as traffic violations. Others did not have a criminal record.
Furthermore, only about 20 percent, or 394,000, of those deported were convicted of serious offenses, such as crimes involving drugs, The NY Times reported.
News of the deportations comes a week after the conservative think-tank Center for Immigration Studies released a contradictory report claiming nearly 68,000 immigrants that are in the U.S. illegally and have previous convictions were released instead of being sent home.
The offenses committed by most that were deported included traffic violations involving driving under the influence. Those type of cases increase from 43,000 during the last five years of the Bush administration to 193,000 during the five years Obama has been president, The NY Times reported.
Obama has vowed to increase protection for immigrants, however he has been unable to generate enough political support to do so. Government officials say the 2 million deportations is the administration's way of pleasing both supporters and at the same time showing it will not be soft on undocumented offenders.
"It would have been better for the administration to state its enforcement intentions clearly and stand by them, rather than being willing to lean whichever way seemed politically expedient at any given moment," David Martin, former deputy counsel general at the Department of Homeland Security, told the newspaper. "It was a pipe dream to think they could make everyone happy."
