Photo credit: ABC News
The Trump administration is packing immigration courtrooms and giving less lead time on hearings in an effort to clear a decades-long backlog. The result is a historic rise in the number of people missing court dates and being immediately ordered deported as the system struggles to keep up, new data shows.
The Associated Press reports that dozens and often hundreds of immigrants’ cases a day are being assigned to individual judges in courthouses across the country, in what are known as “mega” master hearings, which have seen a significant increase this year. More than 1,300 such hearings were held in June alone, a nearly threefold jump from the previous June, according to data analyzed by Mobile Pathways, a non-profit that tracks immigration court data to help immigrants, their lawyers and other organizations.
At the same time, data shows, courts have severely cut the length of time many people are getting to prepare for complex immigration proceedings, from about six months to often just a little more than a month.
When a judge issues a removal or deportation order, any attached asylum claims are considered abandoned. The national rate of cases considered abandoned is nearly five times the historical average since 2009.
They’re subsequently missing hearings, receiving deportation orders and being told they’ve abandoned any asylum claims at unprecedented rates.
Those who favour stricter immigration laws see the swift hearings as a course-correction for a longstanding problem.
“There’s no credibility in the system that never reaches an end,” Andrew Arthur, a fellow at the conservative Centre for Immigration Studies, said.
But he worries that these rapid-fire hearings could affect the judges’ performance.
The Justice Department office that handles immigration courts said in a statement that judges were adjusting their schedules to resolve cases more quickly, while making sure all cases get handled fairly and lawfully. It said court delays harm immigrants who have valid claims, and that the public interest is served when the government deports pweoplewithout legal grounds to stay.
