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Vol. 73/No. 9      March 9, 2009

 
Latinos 40 percent of federal
court sentences in 2007
 
BY CINDY JAQUITH  
More Latinos were sentenced for federal crimes in the United States in 2007 than members of any other nationality. The increase in their prosecution is a direct result of the bipartisan crackdown on immigrant workers in the last decade and a half.

According to a study released by the Pew Hispanic Center February 18, Latinos represented 40 percent of those sentenced in federal courts in 2007, compared to 27 percent for whites and 23 percent for Blacks. The study estimated that Latinos are 13 percent of the U.S. population.

Between 1991 and 2007, the study says, “the total number of offenders sentenced in federal courts more than doubled.” During this period, “the number of sentenced offenders who were Hispanic nearly quadrupled.”

Convictions for immigration law violations were 7 percent of all federal convictions in 1991, but that figure rose to 24 percent by 2007. Eighty percent of those sentenced that year for immigration crimes were Latino. Three-fourths of them were found guilty of entering or living in the United States illegally.

The arrests of Latinos have come from stepped-up factory raids, sweeps of working-class neighborhoods, and tighter controls at the border. “Beginning in 1995, the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) implemented an initiative called Operation Gatekeeper,” the study said. “Since that time, the number of immigration offenders in federal courts has increased from less than 10% of all cases prior to 1996 to 24% in 2007.”  
 
 
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