Obama immigration policy has highest deportation rate in 60 years

The enforcement strategies of Obama on illegal immigrants seems to be paying off. Since Obama has taken office 1.1 million illegals have been deported, which is the highest number of deportation in 6 decades.

However, there is a drawback. US citizens are finding themselves being detained as well for 2-4 days in local and county jails until their citizenship questions can be cleared up. The Immigration and Customers Enforcement office said they are putting in new policies to help get these US citizens out of jail quicker.

The detainment of US citizens stems from inaccurate data in the Homeland Security database. Under Obama policy this year in areas where the Secure Communities program is active every person booked into a local jail has their fingerprints checked against the Dept of Homeland Security database. This program will be extended to every local jail in the US by the end of 2013. In 2011 this program was rapidly extended.

If the fingerprints match the Homeland Security database, federal immigration agents can issue a detainer asking local law enforcement to hold the suspect for up to 48 hours. Local law enforcement usually enforces this detainer, regardless of the persons plea to prove their citizenship.

John Morton the director of the Immigration and Customes Enforcement said that the agency does not have the power to detain citizens, only suggest that they are detained and will start publishing new forms for all detainers that will require police to notify suspects who are being held on immigration questions to be notified of why they are being held and will provide them with a hot line to call immigration agency directly to clear up their US Citizenship status questions and be released.

from 2006 to 2008 two detention centers in Arizona held 82 people for a YEAR on immigration questions until they were set free after immigration judges determined they were legal American citizens

One incident of this happened to Mr. Montejano a 40 yr old man who was arrested in Santa Monica on Nov 5th. He went to the mall with his 4 children this year to do some Christmas shopping and argued with his daughter over a $10 bottle of cologn. He had other bags he had from other stores and said he accidently dropped the cologne into one of the bags of stuff he had already purchased and was arrested as he left the store. He had his drivers license and other legal identification on him but was denied bail and held even after a criminal court judge canceled his fine and ordered the police to let him go. He was freed on Nov 9th after the ACLU lawyers sent the Immigration and Customes office his US passport and birth certificate.

His fingerprints triggered a positive match in the Homeland Security database because in 1996 someone failed to recognize his citizenship and mistakenly marked him as deported to Mexico. After it was cleared up in 1996 that he was a US citizen, he was not deported but his record in the Homeland Security database was never corrected.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45665156/ns/us_news-the_new_york_times/