By Jane Shim, and Alison Leal Parker

  Drug laws are being reformed across the United States to move away from the harsh punitive approaches of the war on drugs, but federal immigration law continues to treat drug offenses, including decades-old offenses, as grounds for deportation of immigrants. Those harmed, authorized and unauthorized immigrants alike, often have deep connections to the country, where they have formed families, attained education, and built their lives. “Disrupt and Vilify” analyzes new federal government data from 2002 to 2020, finding the US has deported 500,000 people whose most serious offense was drug-related. Of these, 240,000 were deported between 2013 and 2020, amounting to about one of every five deportations of immigrants with a criminal conviction for that period. A conviction for even minor drug offenses—for example, drug possession (including marijuana)—can carry devastating immigration consequences that far outstrip the criminal sentence imposed. Some would not be criminal offenses if committed today or involve conduct that is now legal under state law. There are significant racial disparities in the imposition of immigration penalties. One out of five noncitizens facing deportation on criminal grounds is Black. Human Rights Watch and the Drug Policy Alliance call on the US Congress to reform federal law to ensure that immigrants with criminal convictions, including drug offenses, are not subject to “one-size-fits-all” deportations. Instead, immigration judges should have the discretion to make individualized decisions. Congress should impose a statute of limitations on deportations for past offenses. Drug policy reforms should prioritize evidence-based policies rooted in public health and human rights to address the root causes of the overdose crisis and problematic drug use, and not continue the vilification of immigrants.  

 New York: Human Rights Watch, 2024. 97p.

By Mark Galeotti

Time of Troubles is the first comprehensive assessment of the impact of the Ukraine war on the Russian underworld. The war’s human and economic costs, along with the political retrenchment of a regime under growing pressure, are all transforming illegal markets and organized crime in Russia with potentially destabilizing effects. The annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the subsequent undeclared conflict in the Donbas region had already begun to reshape the Russian underworld. The 2022 invasion of Ukraine, however, brought dramatic changes. An almost complete split between Ukrainian and Russian criminal groups has had a significant negative impact, not least because of their dominance over transnational narcotics flows. At the same time, new opportunities to smuggle sanctioned luxury goods for the rich and critical components for the defence–industrial complex have enriched and elevated other gangs, especially those able to exploit and control routes through Belarus, Armenia and Central Asia. All this is putting pressure on the underworld status quo – and the state’s capacity to manage and maintain it – and even reshaping the relationship between Russian criminal networks and their partners and subsidiaries abroad. Even when the war does end, some form of sanctions or trade and investment controls will almost certainly remain in place. The Kremlin will find it difficult to integrate large numbers of traumatized, impoverished and disillusioned veterans, many of whom risk drifting into organized and disorganized crime. Condemned to pariah status and looking for alternative ways to support itself, the state may turn its existing ad hoc relations with the underworld into something much more focused and institutionalized, creating new dangers for its neighbours and the global order as a whole. The stakes could hardly be higher.

Geneva, SWIT: Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime. 2023. 72p.