Most people who ended up in Honolulu Immigration Court removal proceedings last year came from three countries: China, Mexico and the Philippines.
Altogether the court received 767 cases in fiscal year 2011, with Chinese nationals involved in 24 percent, followed by Mexicans at 22 percent and Filipinos at 20 percent. The court had been handling an average of 700 cases per year in the first part of the decade, but the numbers surged suddenly to 1,395 in 2008 and 1,113 in 2009 before dropping back to previous levels.
During the peak years, Mexicans predominated at 36 percent of the total in 2008 and 30 percent the following year, according to data from the U.S. Department of Justice. Virtually all of the cases are removal proceedings, but the figures include asylum requests and other "court proceedings." They do not include bond hearings and motions for reconsideration.
Monisha Das Gupta, associate professor of ethnic studies at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, has studied the Mexican community in Hawaii and said her research shows Mexicans have been disproportionately targeted for detention and deportation.
"Latinos have been targeted in the state, which goes against the demographics," said Das Gupta, noting that most immigrants to Hawaii hail from Asia. "The numbers of Mexicans are really, really small. So it’s very curious that this community is targeted this way."
The Pew Hispanic Center pegged the number of undocumented residents in Hawaii at 40,000 in 2010, and researchers estimate that roughly 10 percent were Mexican, Das Gupta said.
Immigration enforcement efforts stepped up in the second half of the decade, with a series of well-publicized workplace raids in 2008, "knock and talk" tactics by which agents would enter people’s homes, and arrests of drivers and even passengers, Das Gupta said. Labor groups blamed Mexicans for taking jobs from Americans.
"They sent a letter to the Mexican consulate complaining about what they thought were undocumented unauthorized Mexican workers taking away jobs," Das Gupta said. "The consulate got really alarmed. That’s when I sort of got involved." Her research on the demographics of the Mexican community in Hawaii found that 80 percent are U.S. citizens.
Another trigger for the increase in removal proceedings overall was the fact that state and local law enforcement began cooperating with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, commonly known as ICE.
"One of the things that a lot of people do not know is that the state is now helping out the feds," said Gary Singh, an immigration lawyer who recently received an award for his pro bono work. "That was one of the direct links to the numbers going up. State probation officers were contacting ICE, and ICE agents would take the person into custody." Later, under the Secure Communities program, local police began alerting ICE when they picked up people for driving infractions, he said.
Virginia Kice, Western regional communications director for ICE, said federal policy is geared toward apprehending people who pose a threat to public safety.
"For its part, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is focused on sensible, effective immigration enforcement that prioritizes efforts first on those serious criminal aliens who present the greatest risk to the security of our communities, not sweeps or raids to target undocumented immigrants indiscriminately," Kice said.
While federal agents show some immigrants the exit door, other foreigners are winning permanent residence in the islands. In fiscal year 2011, 7,296 foreign nationals were granted legal permanent residence in Hawaii, largely on the basis of family sponsorship or because they are immediate relatives of U.S. citizens, according to the Department of Homeland Security.
Most of those new permanent residents — 4,399 — were from the Philippines, with 864 from China, 493 from Japan, 233 from South Korea and 158 from Vietnam. Just 53 were from Mexico.
