Virtually everyone convicted of illegal entry or re-entry gets shunted from federal criminal custody to Immigration and Customs Enforcement to face deportation proceedings. Under George W. Bush’s administration, immigration prosecutions began a massive expansion. By 2008, immigration prosecutions had swallowed up roughly half the federal criminal docket. It also handed Trump a potent weapon to use for his promised crackdown on illegal immigration. The federal government’s myopic focus on immigration prosecutions has come at a cost.

Source: Huffington Post April 03, 2019 09:56 UTC