The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Office has focused its deportations on immigrants who committed non-violent crimes, rather than focusing its efforts on those who have been found guilty of serious crimes, Human Rights Watch said yesterday.

In its report, the human rights organization indicated that 75 percent of immigrants deported from the United States after completing a prison sentence had committed nonviolent crimes.

In addition, one of every five immigrants deported was in the country legally, in some cases for several decades, according to the report, titled, "Forced Apart: Non-Citizens Deported Mostly for Nonviolent Offenses." The report, authored by Human Rights Watch's Assistant Director Alison Parker, referred to statistics from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement office (ICE) from the period 1997 to 2007, and examines the laws on deportation approved in 1996.

"During the 12 years in which the 1996 deportation laws have been applied, no one has bothered to ask if ICE has been focusing on the group for which they were intended, that is, undocumented immigrants found guilty of serious and violent crimes," said Parker.

According to the report, 77 percent of legal immigrants were deported for committing a nonviolent crime.

Transit offenses and possession of marijuana and cocaine were some of the more common crimes for which immigrants were deported.