Immigration Clinic Reports on Deportation of Lawful Resident Parents

The UC Davis School of Law Immigration Law Clinic, together with UC Berkeley School of Law’s International Human Rights Law Clinic and Chief Justice Earl Warren Institute on Race, Ethnicity, and Diversity, has released a policy brief urging Congress to address policies that mandate the deportation of lawful permanent resident (LPR) parents of thousands of U.S. citizen children each year. At least 88,000 U.S. citizen children were impacted between 1997 and 2007, the report estimates.

Entitled “In the Child’s Best Interest? The Consequences of Losing a Lawful Immigrant Parent to Deportation” (Download Childsbestinterest[1]), the brief details the ways in which current immigration laws mandate the deportation of LPR parents without offering the opportunity to challenge the forced separation from their children.

With Congress set to consider comprehensive immigration policy reforms, the brief argues for a restoration of judicial discretion in all cases involving deportation of LPRs with U.S. citizen children; a reversion to the pre-1996 definition of “aggravated felony,” which was reserved for the most serious offenses; the collection of data on U.S. children impacted by the deportation of an LPR parent; and the establishment of guidelines by the Executive Office for Immigration Review for the exercise of discretion in deportation cases.

KJ