The US Has Deported Half a Million People for Drug Offenses in 20 Years [FEATURE]

A new report from Human Rights Watch and the Drug Policy Alliance lifts the lid on some sordid practices in America's intertwined wars on drugs and immigrants.

An Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention center. (ACLU)

Paul Pierrulus was born into a Haitian family on the island of St. Martin and came undocumented to the US when he was five. He grew up in an extended family in New York where education was emphasized, but he only discovered his immigration status when he began researching financial aid for college. Because he was undocumented, his financial aid prospects were limited and he turned to selling cocaine to his fellow students to earn money. He got busted and did a six-month "shock incarceration" stint in prison. That is when his immigrant saga turned into a nightmare.

After he did his time, he was not released. Instead, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) nabbed him, and he spent the next 2 ½ years in immigration detention as the US government attempted to deport him to Haiti -- a country where his parents were born but where he was not a citizen and had never lived. ICE only released him after the Haitian embassy confirmed to ICE that he was not a Haitian citizen. He was placed on ICE supervision and required to report to an ICE officer. He got a job in strategic consulting at a financial firm, where he worked for 13 years. He became a godfather to several kids in his community, including his sister's son.

And then, suddenly, ICE again demanded proof he was not a Haitian citizen. Pierrulus and his attorneys submitted correspondence with the Haitian consulate confirming he was not, but at his next ICE check-in, they arrested him and sent him back to immigration detention. In February 2021, ICE deported him to Haiti, a country so violent and anarchic that it has not had a functioning government since the last elected president was assassinated two years ago. He moves from place to place to stay ahead of the gangs that hold de facto power in the island nation.

"For almost a decade and a half, I've been productive in society, yet that's when out of nowhere, out of the blue, you come and just shake up my whole entire life," Pierrulus said of his experience.

His sad and infuriating tale is just one of many found in a new report from Human Rights Watch and the Drug Policy Alliance, Disrupt and Vilify: The War on Immigrants Inside the War on Drugs, which documents and quantifies the horrendous impacts of a repressive drug policy used as a hammer against people who fled their home countries for a better life in the United States. Documented or undocumented, long-time residents or not, people in this country caught up in the war on drugs who are not US citizens face disastrous, life-altering, family-exploding consequences -- sometimes for things that are no longer in even crimes in many states.

Based on an analysis of immigration and criminal justice statistics, as well as interviews with 42 people affected by the deportations, including immigrants, families, and attorneys caught up in immigration drug war enforcement, the report found that thousands of people are being deported each drug offenses that in many cases no longer exist under state laws. Between 2002 and 2020, half a million people were deported whose most serious offense was a drug offense.

"The uniquely American combination of the drug war and deportation machine work hand in hand to target, exclude, and punish noncitizens for minor offenses -- or in some states legal activity -- such as marijuana possession," said Maritza Perez Medina, director of federal affairs at the Drug Policy Alliance. "This report underscores that punitive federal drug laws separate families, destabilize communities, and terrorize non-citizens, all while overdose deaths have risen and drugs have become more potent and available. It’s imperative that the US government revises federal law to match current state-based drug policy reforms to end and prevent the immense human suffering being inflicted in the name of the drug war."

A previous Human Rights Watch report showed that from 2002 to 2012, 260,000 people were deported for drug-related offenses. This report updates that figure with an additional 240,000 people deported between 2013 and 2020, amounting to about one of every five deportations of immigrants with a criminal conviction during this period.

Convictions for even the most minor drug offenses -- for example, possessing a small amount of a controlled substance, including marijuana -- carry devastating consequences that far outstrip the criminal sentence imposed. The groups found that between 2002 and 2020, the federal government deported at least 156,000 people whose most serious criminal offense was for drug use or possession, including over 47,000 for marijuana use or possession, even though marijuana has been legalized or decriminalized in most states. Often, the offenses that lead to deportation are decades old or so minor they resulted in little or no prison time. Some would not be criminal offenses if committed today.

"Why should parents or grandparents be deported away from children in their care for decades-old drug offenses, including offenses that would be legal today?" said Vicki Gaubeca, associate US director for immigration and border policy at Human Rights Watch. "If drug conduct is not a crime under state law, it should not make someone deportable."

The report focuses on deportations from states with large immigrant populations that have advanced drug policy reforms, including California, Illinois, New York, and Texas. It finds cases of refugees and US military veterans separated from their homes and families due to deportations for drug offenses; immigrants who have lived in the US since childhood deported for drug offenses including marijuana possession, immigrant women sexually abused by corrections officers during their imprisonment for drug offenses, in part because their abusers knew they would soon be deported; and immigrants deported due to drug offenses to countries with dangerous human rights conditions, like Paul Pierrulus.

Many of those interviewed faced automatic deportation because immigration law defines their offenses as "drug trafficking aggravated felonies," which bars them from almost all forms of immigration relief. These include several people whose convictions were for low-level offenses. In such cases, the judge is barred from considering individual factors, like evidence of US family ties, rehabilitation, military service, and other factors, and instead must order the immigrant deported. Some of those interviewed are legal permanent residents who have not been able to become citizens because they have engaged in drug conduct, including conduct that is legal in their states like working in the marijuana industry.

"I'm not able to live and operate without fear because I'm not a citizen," said a lawful permanent resident in California, who was convicted for marijuana and paraphernalia possession. "I've lived here for more than 20 years now. This is my home. I have children here. I want to be a citizen, and I'm making every effort to do that. But it seems like that's not going to be possible."

And since this is the US, there is a racial component to the drug war on immigrants. The majority of people deported from the United States for criminal offenses are Black and Brown. Even within the category of noncitizens, Black immigrants are disproportionately impacted. More than one out of every five non-citizens facing deportation on criminal grounds before US immigration courts are Black. Black immigrants are more likely to be held in immigration detention longer and are less likely to be granted release.

As the overdose crisis and immigration reform increasingly become a central focus of political debates and campaigns, the Drug Policy Alliance and Human Rights Watch emphasize the need for elected officials to show leadership by heeding the research and embracing evidence-based policies grounded in public health, safety, and human rights.

"Deportation tears families apart, and the evidence is clear that despite the US deporting 2,400 people per month for a drug offense, overdose deaths have risen," said Perez Medina. "Our lawmakers must ensure that drug policy reforms prioritize public health policies to address the overdose crisis and problematic drug use. The exclusion and vilification of our immigrant neighbors is inhumane and fails to solve the issues our communities care about."

The two groups have some solutions, too: Congress should reform immigration law to ensure immigrants with criminal convictions, including for drug offenses, are not subject to "one-size-fits-all" deportations. Instead, immigration judges should be given the discretion to make individualized decisions. As an important first step, Congress should impose a statute of limitations on deportations, so people can move beyond old offenses and get on with their lives.