U.S. Deportations Reach All-Time High

The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency announced Tuesday that a record has been broken for the number of deportations, with nearly 400,000 in the last fiscal year. This is the highest number of deportations the ICE has ever recorded, according to CNN.  

Of these 400,000, over half are convicted criminals in the United States.  USAToday reports that ICE Director John Morton believes that these numbers reflect the government's priorities when dealing with immigration.

"In the face of limited resources, we have to prioritize, and that starts with criminal offenders," Morton said.  "We are making sure that people who game the system face the consequences."

Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano announced that the ICE would continue to deport large numbers of illegal immigrants, focusing their attention on those who have been convicted of serious crimes.  

The Huffington Post reported that President Barack Obama will face a tough balance to try to please both sides of the immigration debate as the 2012 presidential campaign continues.  

Immigration supporters say Obama's deportation policies may drive Latino voters away from Obama's campaign, because they are the main support for citizenship for the millions of illegal immigrants already living in the United States.  On the other hand, Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) claims that the new priorities give a "free pass" to those illegal immigrants that have avoided committing crimes.  

"It's disappointing that the Obama administration continues to put illegal immigrants before the American people," Smith said. "We could free up millions of jobs for citizens and legal immigrants if we simply enforced our immigration laws."

Of the criminals deported in the last year, USAToday says that the majority of them were convicted of homicide, sexual offenses, drug-related offenses, and driving under the influence.  The ICE aims to continue ridding the country of these kinds of criminals that don't have documented citizenship.