A Third of the Inmates Being Released Early from US Federal Prison Face Deportation Meredith Hoffman - VICE News
go to original October 30, 2015

70 Percent of Children Behind Bars in America Have Mental Health Issues (Fusion)

In 2008, Robert Hernandez was convicted of helping to transport marijuana into the United States from Mexico and sentenced to eight years behind bars. The 47-year-old is now getting out of prison, 20 months before his scheduled release. He is one of 6,000 inmates being released early from federal prisons on Friday and Monday since a new law went into effect that allows shorter sentences for low-level drug traffickers.

But Hernandez can't rush home to his wife and family. Immigration officials will pick him up from prison, take him straight to an immigrant detention center, and likely deport him to Mexico — even though he legally immigrated to the US at age 11 with his family, married an American woman, graduated from an American high school, has three US-born children, and has been a legal US resident for 36 years.

...Hernandez's case is not unique; 1,789 of the 6,000 inmates released this weekend are non-citizens who will be handed over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials for likely deportation. ICE has already issued final removal orders for 763 of these inmates and will place the rest in immigrant detention facilities as they complete deportation proceedings.

"Those with final orders of removal will be removed quickly in most circumstances, while those in removal proceedings will generally remain in ICE custody for the duration of their proceedings," said Barbara Gonzalez, a spokesperson for the agency. She added that the inmates fall "within ICE's civil enforcement priorities" since they are convicted felons.

According to the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Responsibility Act, non-citizens convicted of drug trafficking are deportable.

Read the rest at VICE News

We invite you to add your charity or supporting organizations' news stories and coming events to PVAngels so we can share them with the world. Do it now!