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Deportation cases against 200K migrants under Biden admin dismissed, here's why

BySumanti Sen
Mar 21, 2024 10:09 AM IST

Deportation cases against about 200,000 migrants under President Joe Biden were recently dismissed by immigration judges

Deportation cases against about 200,000 migrants under President Joe Biden were recently dismissed by immigration judges. The move was made after the Department of Homeland Security could not manage to file the required paperwork before their court dates, a report has stated. “Without a proper filing, the Court lacks jurisdiction to hear the case and the immigrants, often asylum seekers, lack a way to move their case forward,” a report released by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University said.

Deportation cases against 200K migrants were dismissed after Biden administration failed to file required paperwork (Photographer: Cassidy Araiza/Bloomberg)(Bloomberg)
Deportation cases against 200K migrants were dismissed after Biden administration failed to file required paperwork (Photographer: Cassidy Araiza/Bloomberg)(Bloomberg)

The research organisation also called it “troubling” that there was an “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,” the report stated.

NTAs (notices to appear) are issued when migrants are caught crossing the border and coming into the US illegally. A hearing date is assigned to migrants who are looking for asylum. Here, they are given a chance to explain to an immigration judge why they should not be deported. NTAs, however, must be filed before the migrant is asked to appear for the hearing.

“Almost all Immigration Court cases are removal cases for which DHS must file an NTA for the case to go forward,” the TRAC report said. When Biden took office, cases dismissed for failing to file NTAs sprung from from 6,482 in 2020 to 33,802 in 2021. The amount of no NTAs was 79,592 in 2022, and then fell to 68,869 in 2023. As many as 10,598 deportation cases had to be dismissed so far this year, because of no NTAs.

The report found that dismissals for 1-in-4 migrants are rectified by the DHS where NTAs were not filed. In fact, the second NTA on almost 2,000 occasions was filed late. “Examining dismissals by Immigration Court hearing locations show that the problem of no NTA dismissals varied greatly by geography. Apart from IAD designated hearing locations apparently dealing with problematic filings, the Houston, Texas, Immigration Court and the Court’s Dedicated Docket in Miami, Florida, are clear standouts, with fifty (50) percent or more of their new cases dismissed for this reason since FY 2021,” the report said.

‘A new administrative problem’

TRAC believes that giving authority to Border Patrol agents and other DHS personnel to schedule immigration hearings may be leading to the problem. “Ten years ago, DHS’s failure to file an NTA before the scheduled first hearing was rare,” the report said. “However, the frequency increased once Border Patrol and other DHS personnel were given access to the Immigration Court’s Interactive Scheduling System (ISS).”

“DHS’s relatively recent access to the Court’s scheduling system created a new administrative problem: DHS employees could schedule Immigration Court hearings sooner than the agency could file the NTA, and this could have negative consequences for both the Immigration Court and the immigrant respondents themselves,” TRAC found. “Indeed, this is what happened.”

“With Immigration Judges staring down 3.5 million pending immigration cases, every wasted hearing is a hearing that could have moved another case forward or resolved it,” it added.

The report added that these mishaps lead to migrants with legitimate asylum claims to struggle. “Until a formal asylum petition is filed, asylum seekers cannot generally obtain work permits,” the report stated.

“These dismissals therefore potentially extend the time and difficulties that individuals, and their families, face in securing food, shelter and other essentials while waiting for a work permit. Indeed, the lack of clarity about their case may only add to their sense of legal limbo rather than alleviate it,” it added.

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