Statistically, around forty percent of the illegal immigrants decide to enter the United States of America legally. However, the downside is that a lot of those who make a legal entry end up overstaying.

Detaining the illegal immigrants

In fact, more than thirty thousand individuals who happen to be no American citizens are detained in the immigration center on any day. This number includes Overstayers of all ages, even children. They are detained in more than two hundred detention centers, prisons, and jails situated all over the country. Furthermore, it was in 2007 when the US Government could not decide right away whether or not to deport a huge group of illegal immigrants, as big as three hundred thousand people, back to where they came from.

What is deportation?

Deportation is finalized in administrative and removal proceedings that are all held under the US immigration law. Removal proceedings, usually, are conducted normally in the Immigration Court and are presided over by a particular immigration judge. From 2003 right up to 2008, the number of deportations coming from the US has increased by more than sixty percent. The Mexicans accounted for approximately two-thirds of those who were submitted for deportation.

Deportation-related complications ensue when the parents turn out to be illegal immigrants yet their children are American citizens because of their birthright. Some federal appellate courts have been strongly upholding the direct refusal by the Immigration and Naturalization Service to sustain the deportation of these illegal immigrants simply based on the grounds that they have children who are citizens of the United States. In fact, more than three million children who are US citizens have at least one illegal immigrant for a parent, back in 2005, and at least thirteen thousand American kids had one or both parents deported starting from 2005 up to 2007.

Seeking for a sanctuary

Elvira Arellano, a Mexican woman sought sanctuary at a local area in Chicago, particularly a church. She intended to impede immigration authorities from separating her from her US-born eight-year-old son.

The same thing happened to Sadia Umanzor, who illegally entered the US from Honduras. In fact, her situation became quite famous as it was the center cover story of the New York Times for their issue for the seventeenth of November in 2007. According to the paper, she was actually a fugitive form a deportation order that occurred in 2006. She was arrested so that officials could detain her while anticipating for her deportation orders. However, a certain judge postponed her deportation proceedings and placed her on house arrest instead because of her US-born six-month-old baby.

Mass deportations

In the entire history of America, there have only been two instances of mass deportations. It was in the 1930’s that around five hundred thousand Mexicans and Mexican Americans, alike, were deported and coerced into emigrating. Experts in the field of immigration stated that this forced migration was a form of racial removal program, since a huge percentage of these individuals have already acquired their US citizenship.

Some politicians have called for a commission in order to study the possible deportation of US citizens and legal residents today. Since history can always repeat itself, in the event that illegal immigration becomes a felony, there will be a massive deportation of US citizens.