One issue that’s on the mind of many immigrants in Texas and around the country is figuring out which types of crimes are eligible for deportation. Many people are under the assumption that there are basic guidelines for determining who gets deported and who gets shown leniency when they’re arrested for an offense, but recent cases have shown that deportation decisions are all over the board. Some immigrants are at risk of deportation for even the most minor offenses.
The issue of deportation became an issue when President Donald Trump warned that the country was immediately going to start deporting immigrants who committed crimes. He suggested that there were as many as three million criminal immigrants in the country who had serious criminal records and posed risks to citizens. Immigrants’ rights activists and attorneys place that number much lower. There’s definitive proof that many immigrants are being deported without any sort of due process and often for extremely minor crimes. This indiscriminate use of deportation has put fear in a lot of immigrants.
The rules can be especially disturbing for people who’ve been in the country for years. The crimes that they may have committed may have been committed years ago, but what many of them are finding out is that that doesn’t matter. If they’re pulled over for a minor violation and it turns out that they have a prior offense on the record, they run the risk of being deported. It doesn’t matter in many cases how serious or not serious the original offense was. Under the Obama administration, felons who’d committed serious crimes were targeted for deportation. The lack of transparency in who qualifies for deportation under the Trump administration has frightened many immigrants.
People who are at the risk of deportation in Texas may benefit by working with attorneys who have experience dealing with exactly these types of matters. Experienced attorneys know the ins and outs of immigration law as well as the procedures in place that facilitate deportations. They may be able to provide helpful assistance.
