According to a new report by Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), a Syracuse University-based nonprofit, immigration judges are denying DHS’ attempts to deport illegal aliens in 57% of their cases. So far in FY16 immigration judges have released 96,233 illegal aliens, including criminals, back into U.S. communities.
If the judges’ decisions continue at this rate they will exceed last year’s deportation denials that allowed 106,676 illegal aliens to remain in the U.S.
“It’s concerning to me that the immigration courts are becoming such a frequently used back-door route to green cards,” said Jessica Vaughan, director of Policy Studies for the Center for Immigration Studies. “Many of them arrived illegally, and are being awarded legal status simply because they managed to stay a long time and have acquired family members here,” she continued.
An overwhelming backlog of 500,000 pending cases is causing some judges to become more lenient and allow the illegal alien to stay instead of deporting them and facing the long appeals process. “From the judge’s perspective, because the courts are so backlogged, it is easier to let people stay in the country than actually try to remove them. There are endless layers of appeal and no finality in it,” said Ira Mehlman, spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR).
Prolonging a case benefits the immigration attorney “because they can charge more fees” and their clients “because the likelihood that they will get to stay in the country increases,” Mehlman commented.
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