Those left behind by Obama’s criminal justice reforms

President Obama last week announced new actions aimed at “helping Americans who’ve paid their debt to society rehabilitate and reintegrate back into their communities.”

Yet even as criminal justice reform enjoys its national spotlight, the administration is quick to overlook the twin cruelties of mass criminalization and senseless punishment that are not limited to the criminal justice system, and are in fact just as insidious inside our immigration system today.

{mosads}It’s become clear that the worst and most widely condemned policies of our criminal justice system have been replicated in our immigration system. The same racialized, heavy-handed tactics of the war on crime that led to mass incarceration are now fueling mass deportation – and with a similar devastating impact on families and communities nationwide.

First, consider our immigration system’s massive size: the current number of individuals detained in the United States on immigration violations represents twice as many individuals as those housed annually in the Federal Bureau of Prisons; the United States now has the largest immigration detention system in the world.

Second, in lockstep with its awesome scale is its clear prejudice. Latinos represent the largest group prosecuted for federal crimes, and Latino immigrants make up 37 percent of defendants sentenced in federal court, representing the largest demographic group and outnumbering all other minority groups sentenced in federal court.

Finally, its absurd cost is yet another shared feature. The U.S. Government spent $18 billion on immigration enforcement in 2013. This is more than the U.S. spends on the FBI, DEA, Secret Service, and all other federal criminal law enforcement agencies combined. Most of that spending is put towards deportations.

The administration continues to fail to make the obvious connection between these two systems. Earlier this year during his visit to the El Reno Federal Penitentiary in Oklahoma, Obama insisted that among other positive aspects, criminal justice reform will “keep families intact.” Yet the administration’s preferred approach to incarcerating immigrants replicates the same inhumane practice of separating families that the president rightfully condemns.

To exclude immigrants from widespread, bipartisan efforts to end mass incarceration and the bias in our police practices suggests that immigrants are unworthy of equal protection under the law.  This is unconscionable at a time when criminal justice reform, biased policing, and epidemic rates of mass incarceration are at the forefront of the national agenda.

Rather than continuing to fund and focus on mass incarceration and deportation, we need to invest in policies that uphold our values, protect human rights, and provide true security for our communities.  

Martin is founder and president of JustLeadershipUSA. Junck is the supervising attorney at the Immigrant Legal Resource Center.