U.S. deportation of criminal immigrants harsh: group

PHOENIX (Reuters) - U.S. laws that order the deportation of legal immigrants found guilty of a criminal offense are a violation of human rights and have resulted in thousands of families being separated, New York-based Human Rights Watch said on Wednesday.

Following changes to U.S. immigration law in 1996 authorities have deported more than 670,000 immigrants from the United States for criminal offenses, leaving behind an estimated 1.6 million spouses and children, the report said.

The study said deportees included immigrants who had come to the United States as children and who had committed crimes such as narcotics possession and petty shoplifting.

"It may be reasonable, for example, to deport a newcomer to the U.S. who engages in terrible crimes after he has served his sentence. But many immigrants who are being deported from the United States are a far cry from the worst and most violent offenders," the report said.

The 88-page report said that almost two thirds of the deportees were sent home following conviction for non-violent offenses, the remainder were expelled after being found guilty of violent and other unspecified crimes.

Among those deported was a 52-year-old U.S. military veteran convicted of possessing narcotics, who had lived in the United States for four decades and raised four sons.

Other cases included a father of three U.S.-born children convicted of breaking into a car and stealing a bottle of eye drops from a drug store.

The study said mandatory deportations contradicted human rights law which requires a fair hearing in which family ties and other connections to an immigrant's host country are weighed against a country's interest in deporting him.

"Unfortunately, that is precisely what U.S. immigration law fails to do -- it gives no opportunity to immigration judges to balance the individual's crime against his or her family relationships, other connections to the U.S. such as military service or economic ties, or fear of persecution in the country of origin," the report said.

Prior to 1997, immigrants who committed a crime were allowed to go before an immigration judge who could exercise discretion in imposing penalties.