“Gang bangers.” That’s how President Barack Obama, while speaking at a November presidential debate, characterized the criminal immigrants who have been deported during his administration. A recent news report, however, shows that immigration officials floated ideas last year aimed at buoying deportations stats by focusing on minor criminals. Drawing on interviews and internal emails, USA Today’s Brad Heath found that federal immigration officials suggested tactics that included “trolling state driver’s license records for information about foreign-born applicants, dispatching U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to traffic safety checkpoints conducted by police departments, and processing more illegal immigrants who had been booked into jails for low-level offenses.”
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