Deportation

Stephen J. Sills

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security deports more than 1 million nonresident aliens annually, including about 150,000 to 200,000 “formal removals.” A formal removal occurs when an alien is decreed deportable in an administrative proceeding within the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Deportability may be due to undocumented entry, visa overstay, or criminal conviction. More than two thirds (69.5 percent) of formal removals in 2005 were Mexican nationals, with nationals of Honduras (7.0 percent) and Guatemala (6.0 percent) a distant second and third. More than one third of formal removals (36.2 percent) resulted from attempts to enter without proper documents (see Table 1 ). A similar offense, “present without authorization,” resulted in an additional 34.6 percent of removals. Only about one fifth (19.2 percent) of formal removals were due to criminal violations. Thus undocumented migrants account for the majority of formal removals. Nonetheless, nearly 90 percent of deportations are termed ...

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