Deportations due to drunk driving and traffic violations escalate dramatically

Huge increases in deportations of people after they were arrested for breaking traffic or immigration laws or driving drunk helped the Obama administration set a record last year for the number of criminal immigrants forced to leave the country, documents show.

The U.S. deported nearly 393,000 people in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, half of whom were considered criminals. Of those, 27,635 had been arrested for drunken driving, more than double the 10,851 deported after drunken driving arrests in 2008, the last full year of the Bush administration, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement data provided to The Associated Press.

An additional 13,028 were deported last year after being arrested on less serious traffic law violations, nearly three times the 4,527 traffic offenders deported two years earlier, according to the data.

The spike in the numbers of people deported for traffic offenses as well as a 78 percent increase in people deported for immigration-related offenses renewed skepticism about the administration's claims that it is focusing on the most dangerous criminals.

President Barack Obama regularly says his administration is enforcing immigration laws more wisely than his predecessor by focusing on arresting the "worst of the worst." He promised in his 2008 presidential campaign to focus immigration enforcement on dangerous criminals. As recently as May 10, Obama said in a speech in El Paso, Texas, that his administration was focused on violent offenders and not families or "folks who are looking to scrape together an income."

Most of the criminal immigrants deported last year had committed drug-related crimes. They totaled 45,003, compared with 36,053 in 2008. Drug-related crime -- described as the manufacture, distribution, possession or sale of drugs -- has been the No. 1 crime among immigrants for years. Drunken driving had the third highest total number of immigrants deported with that crime.

An illegal immigrant from Bolivia, Carlos Montano, is awaiting trial in Virginia on charges of involuntary manslaughter in a drunken driving accident that killed Benedictine nun Denise Mosier and injured two other nuns.


http://www.mercurynews.com/crime-cou...669?source=rss

They're getting rid of the bad ones in order to make it easier to pass the dream act.

If you drink and drive you are not only risking your life but others as well.

seems like bullshit to me. While I don't condone drunk driving, you'll be hard pressed to find citizens of legal age who haven't at least once driven buzzed (NHTSA quotes 20%; but people will lie even in anonymous polls)... That doesn't excuse the crime of course, but these are not hardened criminals like the administration meant to imply. Traffic violators and drunk drivers just seem like the easier, lazier target to meet a quota/promise of being tough on criminals.

Nothing wrong with deporting drunk drivers and criminals.

Why would you do that kind of stupid stuff if you know that your not even legal here.

no, actually, drunk drivers do deserve the most harsh punishment. they lack common sense and have put themselves and innocent others for clear and present danger. drunk driving coupled with driving without license is a inadmissible offense.

As soon as we are exiling citizens over the same offence, I'll take your statement seriously.

Drunk drivers are such a hazard! We have to protect ourselves from them and a great way to do that is to get auto insurance, besides the deportation. I also just found a useful site for finding cheap auto insurance for those interested.

by all means i never drove drunk and i don't support DWI by any means but that's bs.. we could be made up of angels and they still wouldn't pass DA if there were no incentives for them to pursue this bill..

nevertheless, if our skin wasn't colored, it would be a different story..