Tens of Thousands of Immigrants Have Been Deported Just for Cannabis

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Drug Policy Alliance and Human Rights Watch released a new report this week titled “Disrupt and Vilify” The War on Immigrants Inside the US War on Drugs. 

The report highlights that while state cannabis laws have evolved, federal immigration law as it relates to drugs “stagnates.”

“State and federal drug policy is most often overridden by federal immigration law, depriving immigrants of reforms that only benefit citizens. Conviction of even the most minor drug offense—for example, possessing a small amount of a controlled substance, including marijuana, where that is illegal—carries devastating consequences that far outstrip the criminal sentence imposed,” the report notes. 

Further, the authors found that roughly 500,000 people whose “most serious offense was for drugs” were deported between 2002 and 2020. More than 47,000 of these people were deported just for cannabis use or possession. 

“Nationwide, including in California, drug convictions and conduct make long-term residents deportable and subject to mandatory detention. A drug offense, or even work in the legal cannabis industry, will also bar them from becoming naturalized citizens,” the report notes. 

The report highlights stories of people who experienced such consequences, including Oswaldo Barrientos, a lawful permanent resident originally from El Salvador, who was “denied citizenship due to his employment with a state-licensed company that grows marijuana.”

Immigrants who are medical cannabis patients are also at risk. Maria Sanchez, of Sonoma County, California, was charged with an “aggravated felony” related to cannabis cultivation. “She had grown four small plants and soaked them in rubbing alcohol as a tincture for her arthritis,” the report noted. 

Read the full report here.