The criminal bars for parents applying for deferred action are very strict. Even if there is no absolute bar to a parent's application, immigration officers can still deny it for "discretionary" reasons -- in other words, if something about the applicant raises concerns about her continued presence in the US.

The Administration's recent expansion of family detention comes at a tragic and horrific cost. This week, allegations of sexual abuse and assault were revealed inside Immigration and Customs Enforcement's new family detention center.

Although clear and correct statistics are no doubt useful in painting a picture, we must ask how much they matter. What is clear from these statistics is that people are being deported, and families and communities are suffering. With that in mind, isn't any number too high?

Hardworking immigrant families' vulnerability to separation -- at the rate of 1,100 deportations daily -- has created the urgency for us to interconnect in a way that binds us together.

In reality, it takes a lot less to detain and exile immigrants with supposed "ordinary" lives for doing ordinary things, like driving their kids to school, than it does to punish the Justin Biebers of the world.