How Immigrants Became Criminals
News
Boston Review
March 17, 2017

“In late February nineteen-year-old ‘Dreamer’ Josue Romero was arrested by the San Antonio police for possession of under two ounces of marijuana. Even though the Honduras-born youth had been granted relief from deportation under the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival (DACA) program, police handed him over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Romero’s detention evoked immediate public outcry at the possibility that a misdemeanor charge might cause him to be expelled from the country where he had lived since he was four. Thanks to the local media and activists, who celebrated Josue as a promising art student and a ‘good’ immigrant, he was released by ICE after two days in detention. But while Romero remains in the United States for now, he is the exception. Hundreds of thousands of other immigrants with criminal arrests have not been spared from deportation.”

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