The original content of Democracy Now! Headlines appears under the Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 3.0 License (United States). For more, including their other shows and media, visit www.democracynow.org. December 18, 2012 Report: Obama Admin Deported More Than 200,000 Parents of U.S. Citizens in About 2 Years ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- New figures show the Obama administration has conducted more than 200,000 deportations of parents with children who are U.S. citizens over a period of about two years. According to federal data, nearly a quarter of all deportations from July 1, 2010, to the end of this September were issued for parents with U.S.-citizen children. Colorlines reports the data appears to dash hopes that new guidelines issued for deportations last year would curb the separation of families by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement. The "prosecutorial discretion" guidelines instruct U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to focus on certain immigrants, including those with criminal convictions, and to consider a person’s ties to the country and "whether the person has a U.S. citizen or permanent resident spouse, child, or parent" when making deportation decisions. .