Policy

A conviction for a drug offense can have outsized legal consequences when it comes to obtaining employment, licensing, access to benefits and finding housing. Outside of the law it can have serious consequences In some cases minor marijuana offenses could result in eviction or the loss of employment or parental rights. These consequences can effect people for years, long after they have tried to put the conviction behind them. It is almost a right of passage for teenagers to experiment with drugs. A nationwide survey done in 2019 found that 13% of people 12+ used an illicit drug in the past month, and by age 16 that number goes up to 16.5% i. In 1986, Congress passed the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA). IRCA required the U.S. Attorney General to deport immigrants with criminal convictions as quickly as possible. The ADAA of 1986 also authorized the use of “detainers,” under a subsection titled the “Narcotics Traffickers Deportation Act,” by which immigration authorities could request that local law enforcement agencies hold people arrested for controlled substance offenses until they could be taken into immigration custody. This sort of paved the way for political rhetoric that continues to criminalize migration and push for punitive policies towards the treatment of immigrants who cross the southern border without a visa In the 80’s and 90’s drug laws grew in their size and scope and so did their punishments, in part thanks to now President Biden. These laws often discriminated against African American and immigrant populations in the way they were written and enforced. The Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986, which set mandatory minimums for drug law violations, including exceptionally harsh penalties for crack cocaine. With this law Congress expanded the drug convictions that are grounds for deportability and exclusion of immigrants from the country. Ultimately Congress amended the laws relating to exclusion and deportability grounds to include a single conviction for violating any law involving a controlled substance as defined by the federal drug schedule. Congress also eliminated all inadmissibility waivers for drug convictions with the exception of only a conviction for possession of less than 30 grams of marijuana, however, marijuana use remains a ground of “health-related inadmissibility” that can apply to any person who admits to having used marijuana and DHS can accuse a non-citizen of “drug trafficking” if they have reason to believe that the person was ever involved in the transporting or transfer of any amount of any drugii. Two years after that the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988 sought to further address “an expansive drug syndicate established and managed by illegal aliens,” in the words of Florida senator Lawton Chiles. Anti-Drug Abuse Act introduced aggravated felonies to the immigration law. Two years after that, the Immigration Act of 1990 signed into law by President H.W. Bush increased the types of offenses considered aggravated felonies. Then in 1994, the Immigration and Nationality Technical Corrections Act of 1994 again increased that number.. Then only two years later, the Anti-terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 increased it yet againiii. The terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 gave the government the basis to completely revamp the country’s immigration laws not only on paper but by creating the Department of Homeland Security, the largest government agency that ever existed to enforce the immigration laws and to actively investigate and search for noncitizens in the US in order to apprehend, detain, and deport them . These changes to the law coupled with the creation of a second military police force dedicated to the enforcement of those laws, birthed the deportation machine of the twenty first century that is responsible for millions of arrests. Controlled substance charges continue to be the leading grounds for the deportation of non-citizens today with over 34,000 immigrants between fiscal years 2007 – 2012 being removed from the US due a drug conviction. In 2019 alone, ICE arrested more than 67,000 people for drug offenses. An arrest for a drug offense not only renders a non-citizen all but automatically deportable, but it subjects them to mandatory detention. Under U.S. law individuals convicted of certain crimes or that the government has “reason to believe” are involved in drug trafficking are not eligible to get released from immigration custody on bond and they are required to challenge their deportation from jail. Mandatory detention puts an incredible burden on the non-citizen and their family because the court proceedings move much faster on the detained docket, lawyers charge much more money, and it extremely difficult to coordinate the preparation of documents and testimony from immigration detention, especially because the government will detain noncitizens hundreds of miles away from their homes. ICE will only hold noncitizens in New York City temporarily on days they have hearings in court then busses them to New Jersey or Pennsylvanian to be jailed between hearings. ICE even has detention bed quotas—as in, a minimum number of non-citizens that must be detained at any given time. In 2018 ICE increased its detention bed quotas from 34,000 to 40,520. Between May and July 2019 55,185 non-citizens were in ICE custody and the average stay length was 46 days, which resulted in ICE exceeding the budget for immigration detention set by Congress. The government has contracts with private prisons that guarantee a certain capacity (some as high as 100%). When the taxpayers are paying the corporation regardless of whether or not they are actually holding anyone people should start questioning how these deals are being negotiated. The harsh penalties for drugs are not only a concern for immigrants that are in the country without any legal status. Immigrants that are here on a visitor visa, student or employment visa, or even permanent residents with green cards will be put in court and face deportation if convicted of a controlled substance offense, even possession of marijuana (which they would have to prove fits into the exception of being mere possession of less than 30 grams). The vast majority of green … Read more