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New York, NY: Nearly 50,000 non-citizens have been deported over the past decades for violating marijuana possession laws, according to data compiled by the advocacy groups Human Rights Watch and the Drug Policy Alliance.
Researchers analyzed federal deportation data for the years 2002 to 2021. During this time, they estimated that federal officials deported approximately 156,000 non-citizens whose most serious conviction was illicit drug possession. Nearly one-third of those offenders (47,000) were deported for violating marijuana possession laws.
The report’s authors further acknowledged that, in some instances, non-citizens are being deported for marijuana-related activities that are no longer criminalized by state and local jurisdictions.
“The US federal government has thus far been unwilling to revise federal immigration law to match current public sentiment on drugs,” authors wrote. “There is no statute of limitations in federal law on deportation after a criminal conviction. Many immigrants are still being deported for convictions from the late 1980s and early 1990s, sometimes for conduct that is no longer a crime under state law.”
In total, nearly one out of every five immigrants deported was removed from the country for a drug-related conviction.
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