A new report published Wednesday by a non-partisan academic group claims that roughly 200,000 deportation cases have been dismissed due to President Joe Biden’s administration failing to file applicable court paperwork.
The report, published by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), explains that the Department of Homeland Security’s responsibility to enforce U.S. immigration laws by issuing illegal immigrants a Notice to Appear (NTA) and filing paperwork with Immigration Court is an “essential step” in the process of immigration enforcement.
TRAC noted that the Department of Homeland Security initiates deportment cases after issuing an NTA to an illegal immigrant and filing paperwork in Immigration Court. However, data obtained by TRAC shows that Biden’s Department of Homeland Security failed to file paperwork with Immigration Court in roughly 200,000 cases.
The report claims that over half of the deportation cases in Miami, Florida, and Houston, Texas, have been dismissed under the Biden administration due to paperwork not being filed properly. Additionally, the report showed that the percentage of immigration cases dismissed by Immigration Court judges increased significantly after Biden was elected president in 2021. Only 3.3% of cases were dismissed in 2020, while 10.6 percent of immigration cases were dismissed in 2021.
“These large numbers of dismissals and what then happens raise serious concerns,” TRAC wrote.
While the percentage of cases dismissed by immigration judges has decreased since 2021, TRAC reported that the number of cases dismissed in 2022 and 20023 was significantly greater than the number of cases dismissed in previous years due to the massive increase in illegal immigration under the Biden administration.
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According to The Daily Wire, even if a case is dismissed due to paperwork not be filed by certain court dates, the federal government can file a new case against an illegal immigrant. However, the data provided by TRAC shows that the Department of Homeland Security declined to utilize this option in approximately 75% of the cases.
“This suggests that in three-quarters of these 200,000 cases the immigrant was effectively left in legal limbo without any way to pursue asylum or other means of relief,” TRAC stated.
TRAC noted that the report shows an “incomplete picture” due to federal immigration agencies being reluctant to share additional information.
“No information to our knowledge has been publicly released by DHS on why and where these problems occur,” TRAC wrote in the report. “Troubling is the almost total lack of transparency on where and why these DHS failures occurred. Equally troubling is the lack of solid information on what happened to these many immigrants when DHS never rectified its failure by reissuing and filing new NTAs to restart their Court cases.”
