Expansion of legal definition likely to increase deportations, detentions, migration scholar says

LAWRENCE — Federal immigration officials on Thursday deported a woman in Arizona to Mexico just days after the Trump administration has broadened the definition of a "criminal alien."

According to national news reports, the deportation of Guadalupe García de Rayos is believed to be the first and would deviate from deportation policy under the Obama administration that made a priority of deporting people deemed a threat to public or national safety. Rayos had checked in with federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers for eight years as a requirement of being caught using a fake Social Security number in 2008.

A University of Kansas researcher who leads the KU Center for Migration Studies said the latest expansion of the definition of "criminal alien" matches action by both the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations, and that the shift in policy will likely lead to more deportations and number of people detained in immigration-related cases.

Cecilia Menjívar, KU Foundation Distinguished Professor of Sociology, is available to discuss implications of the changes in U.S. immigration enforcement policy. Her broad research focuses on U.S.-bound migration from Central America and how the laws and the legal context that receive immigrants influence their lives and trajectories in America. She has also co-authored recent research on how media portrayals drive perception of immigration policy and issues that migrants returning to Mexico face.

"In this case, the definition goes pretty far and wide — much broader than past administrations. We have seen already that with each expansion of this category — such as new crimes added to the list of deportable offenses —there is a sharp increase in deportations, but also and very importantly, in detentions," Menjívar said. "Private prisons are expanding rapidly and most of the people they house are immigrants, so a broadening of the category of ‘criminal alien’ has the direct effect of sending more immigrants to detention."

Menjívar co-leads, with Victor Agadjanian, also a KU Foundation Professor, the KU Center for Migration Research. The center promotes and coordinates KU research on causes, types and consequences of human migration at the state, regional, national and global levels.