Recently, I examined a series of (predictably recurring but erroneous nonetheless) claims that ICE is somehow failing in its mission by expanding arrests and deportation of aliens without “criminal” histories”. The deeper problem is that a series of oxymoronic arguments about alien criminality now define the immigration debate — endangering Americans, both U.S. citizens and lawful immigrants. Once you put the pieces together, you realize how recklessly nuts the whole thing is.
The Criminal Ground of Inadmissibility and Deportability
Let’s start with the fact that many people (including the Chief Justice and Justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor) use a term, “illegal alien”, as if it is somehow defined in law.
It’s not, and you can scan the roughly half-million words in the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) and the approximately half-million others in its implementing regulations and you won’t find those two used in sequence anywhere.
“Illegal alien” is shorthand for any alien at the border or ports or in the interior of the United States who is removable under the grounds of inadmissibility in section 212(a) of the INA or the grounds of deportability in section 237(a) of the INA.
The most common ground of inadmissibility is section 212(a)(6)(A), the one that renders any alien who entered illegally removable, and the most common deportation grounds are section 237(a)(1)(B) and (C), which render nonimmigrant aliens who entered legally but overstayed their admissions or violated the terms of their admissions removable.
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