American Deportation and the 'Non-Criminal' Criminals.

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

In recent years, a considerable amount of the socio-legal literature has focused on the rising rate of criminal deportation and more generally the intersection of the immigration and criminal justice systems. While the number of criminal removals in this decade is indeed unprecedented, deportation because of non-criminal conduct has far outnumbered criminal deportation. Yet, there are no empirical studies to date which have focused exclusively on non-criminal deportation. This dissertation fills this gap in the literature by providing an in-depth analysis of non-criminal deportations from 1908-2012. The study documents and explains historical variations in non-criminal deportation in the United States. Dividing the analyses into three distinct eras, this study looks at how noncriminal deportation has fluctuated with macro-level factors such as the economy, the political system and changing demographics. In addition, the study evaluates the impact of public opinion on non-criminal deportation for the period from 1964-2012.
Results from descriptive analyses suggest that during the early years of the century, deportation was highly variable with removals based on the `morality' of foreigners and whether or not they were likely to become dependent on the state as public charges. As the enforcement bureaucracy strengthens during the latter half of the century, non-criminal deportations become more administrative with majority of the deportees being visa violators and those who entered without proper documents. The statistical results suggest that during the period between 1908 and1940 which coincides with the Great Depression, there was a strong association between the unemployment rate and non-criminal deportation. Unlike previous research which suggests that criminal deportation increased following the passage of punitive immigration laws in the 1980s, this study finds that non-criminal deportation increased in the 1990s following the passage of laws under the Democratic Clinton administration with support from a Republican Congress. The results also suggest that when Republican president in power, non-criminal deportations are more likely to increase than when there is a Democratic incumbent. These results are significant in all eras except the period from 1941 to 1986. With regards to public opinion, the results show that non-criminal deportations increase when the public has negative opinions towards immigrants during the post-1964 era. Thus, this study sheds light on how non-criminal removals have been classified and what this means for current immigration policy on deportation.