Black Immigrants Much More Likely to be Deported Over Criminal Offenses, Data Shows

It is widely recognized that African Americans in the US are more likely to be arrested, convicted and imprisoned. A new report finds this pattern of criminalization has had a spillover effect for black immigrants.

People from Africa and the Caribbean are twice as likely to face deportation due to a criminal conviction compared with those from other regions, and more than three times as likely to be detained while their cases are pending, according to the Black Alliance for Just Immigration.

“This report shows black immigrants encounter major social and economic challenges in the US because of systemic racism,” said Opal Tometi, the Alliance’s executive director and a co-founder of the Black Lives Matter movement, who is a first-generation Nigerian American and was born and raised in Arizona.

But criminal convictions are just one of the reasons immigrants are placed in deportation proceedings. Others are funneled into deportation proceedings simply because of immigration violations. Overall, black immigrants are slightly more likely to face deportation for any reason than immigrants overall. Black immigrants comprise about 7% of immigrants in the US, and nearly 11% of those facing deportation.

The period examined in the report spans the two decades since the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act broadened the scope of crimes that are deportable offenses, including possession of marijuana.

“Our theory is that many black immigrants live in urban areas that are subject to heavier policing than other communities,” said Carl Lipscombe, policy director for the Alliance and a co-author of the report. “So they are more likely to face a police encounter, and more likely to get arrested and end up in court.”

Lipscombe says he witnessed this pattern as a public defender in New York City, where a federal judge found the police department’s stop-and-frisk program unconstitutional after it was shown to disproportionately target black people.

“I encountered dozens of young black immigrants who were arrested for minor offenses such as possession of marijuana and the district attorney would offer them a $25 fine if they pleaded guilty,” said Lipscombe. “This is why we say black immigrants are similarly situated to African Americans, except they face the additional consequence of deportation.”

Most of the report’s new findings stem from a treasure trove of data about immigrants in detention originally obtained through an open records request by Buzzfeed News, which analyzed those facing deportation on non-criminal grounds and found three-quarters of Mexicans were detained, compared with 39% for all others.

The Black Alliance for Just Immigration asked New York University law school’s Immigrant Rights Clinic and a statistician to conduct a first-of-its-kind analysis of detained black immigrants facing deportation due to criminal convictions.

“The data confirms what advocates have long suspected,” said report co-author and NYU law student Juliana Morgan-Trostle.

Since the government does not track immigrants based on race, she said the analysis identified black immigrants by their country of origin, including those from countries such as Haiti and Nigeria, and then compared with the overall immigrant population.

When it compared immigrant groups by region in fiscal year 2013, it found 76% of black immigrants were deported on criminal grounds, in contrast to 45% overall, 38% of Asian immigrants, 47% of South American immigrants and 54% of European immigrants.

The new report on black immigrants also examines census data that shows they have similar rates of educational attainment as white and Asian immigrants, but rank highest on unemployment, with one in five living below the poverty line.

It calls on lawmakers to address the disparate rates of detention and deportation for black immigrants by eliminating certain drug offenses as a cause for deportation, and by restoring judicial discretion in such cases.