About half a million people were deported from the U.S. with a non-violent drug violation as their most serious offense between 2002 and 2020, according to a new report that underscores reforms needed in the immigration system and the failure of “war on drugs” policies.

The 91-page report, authored by the Human Rights Watch and the Drug Policy Alliance, shows how ineffective drug policies intersect with a broken immigration system to further split families apart and disrupt communities. Advocates said federal and state law often conflict, and is especially egregious regarding marijuana — which is recreationally legal in many states like California and New York but is federally prohibited, making it a deportable offense.

“The uniquely American combination of the drug war and deportation machine work hand in hand to target, exclude, and punish noncitizens for minor offenses,” said Maritza Perez Medina, the director of federal affairs at the Drug Policy Alliance (DPA). “It’s imperative that the US government revises federal law to match current state-based drug policy reforms to end and prevent the immense human suffering being inflicted in the name of the drug war.”

The report’s authors said migrants “remain in the crosshairs” in what seems to be a war on immigrants in the broader “war on drugs” narrative. In the 1980′s, President Ronald Reagan falsely tied immigration to drug trafficking. Decades later in the 2020′s, two California politicians proposed failed legislation to deport people with drug offenses, with one blaming “fentanyl-dealing undocumented immigrants” for overdose rates in San Francisco.

But data shows that people use and sell drugs at about the same rate across all racial and ethnic groups. According to the report, 86 percent of people convicted of trafficking fentanyl into the U.S. are citizens driving cars or commercial vehicles. Despite this, enforcement disparities exist, with Black people more than 2.5 times likely to be arrested for possession of any drug.

Black migrants make up one out of every five non-citizens facing deportation on criminal grounds. They are also more likely to be held longer in detention and less likely to be released.

The report also found that thousands of people are deported each year for drug offenses, some that are minor or that no longer exist as state law due to legalization and decriminalization efforts. Between 2013 and 2020, about 240,000 immigrants were deported for a drug conviction, making up one out of every fifth deportation during that time period. Of all the immigrants deported for criminal offenses, those with drug-related violations lived longest in the U.S.

“Why should parents or grandparents be deported away from children in their care for decades-old drug offenses, including offenses that would be legal today,” said Vicki Gaubeca, the associate US director for immigration and border policy at Human Rights Watch, in a statement. “If drug conduct is not a crime under state law, it should not make someone deportable.”

The report comes as polls continue to show immigration among the most important issues for voters this election year. According to a new Gallup poll, more U.S. adults said they want to decrease immigration. It is the first time since 2005 that the majority of respondents (55 percent) indicated that sentiment.

Conservatives like Sen. Ted Cruz and House Speaker Mike Johnson demonized immigrants during the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee on Tuesday, spouting harmful rhetoric to “Make America Safe Again.”

Gallup researchers said the shift in attitude may be attributable to unauthorized border crossings reaching record-breaking numbers late last year. Though levels have dropped significantly less, they still remain above pre-pandemic levels.

Researchers also found that 70 percent of U.S. adults favor opportunities for undocumented people living in the country to become citizens, about a 10 percent drop from 2019. About 81 percent support pathways to citizenship for children brought into the country illegally.

Drug legislation has evolved while immigration law has not changed in more than 35 years since Reagan signed the Immigration Reform and Control Act, researchers said. According to the report, people are often deported for arrests that happened years or even decades before because there is no statute of limitations for beginning deportation procedures after a criminal conviction. Some of these cases of conduct are no longer considered crimes under some state laws.

The “war on drugs” phrase was coined by President Richard Nixon in the 1970s to increase criminalization of drug use, sale and possession — with the agenda to disrupt Black and marginalized communities. Immigration legislation related to drugs has been unchanged since Reagan expanded criminal penalties and lack of reform has led to thousands of deportations.

The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services denies asylum applications for prior drug convictions even if the charges were dropped. Some migrants eligible for a green card or other benefits are afraid to apply in case the violations on their records or even their work in the legal marijuana industry could lead to deportation.

States often play a vital role in “blunting” the negative outcomes migrants experience as their legal system produces the majority of convictions used by the federal immigration system.

In terms of solutions, researchers suggest allowing state drug reforms to apply to undocumented citizens, reforming immigration law to determine deportation on a case-by-case basis, imposing a statute of limitations on deportations and eliminating immigration detention. The report also called for the end of immigration penalties related to conduct no longer penalized under state or federal laws.