TRAC

RECENT POSTS

May 9, 2012 | 11:14 AM | By

ICE deportation reviews by the numbers, explained

Photo by olongapowoodcraft/Flickr (Creative Commons)

The review of some 300,000 deportation cases in the nation’s backlogged immigration courts recently led to some confusing headlines after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced that about 16,500 pending cases would be temporarily put on hold, which some translated into these cases being “shelved.”

But that’s not exactly how it works. As the review process continues, there are no guarantees for those so far deemed eligible for relief. And even for the few spared removal to date, the future is uncertain.

Here’s some of the recently released ICE data on the deportation reviews, followed by an explanation of what it means. From ICE:

• In total, ICE has reviewed 219,554 pending cases with approximately 16,544, or 7.5%, identified as amenable for prosecutorial discretion as of April 16, 2012.

What it means: The agency has identified this many cases as being eligible for prosecutorial discretion, the guidelines for which were established by federal officials last year. The “low priority” immigrants defined in the guidelines include people who have a clean record, have close ties to the United States, have lived in the U.S. since they were minors, have served in the military or are part of a military family, have or are attempting a college education, and so forth.

But these 16,544 cases have only been identified as meeting the criteria for prosecutorial discretion. While it’s good news for those identified as eligible, there are still hoops for them to jump through, such as producing additional documentation and background checks. These cases could be at any stage in the process, and not all will make the cut. ”These cases have not been suspended,” ICE spokeswoman Barbara Gonzales clarified by phone.

Of the eligible cases identified, just a small fraction so far have been administratively closed.

Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Deportation reviews, ICE, Immigration courts, Prosecutorial discretion, TRAC, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
February 27, 2012 | 1:58 PM | By

Is prosecutorial discretion leading to fewer deportation cases?

Photo by Jose Cabezas/AFP/Getty Images

Deportees from the United States alight after their plane arrives in El Salvador, December 18, 2008

Are the prosecutorial discretion guidelines issued by the Obama administration last year having an effect on the number of deportation cases that the administration is pursuing?

A new Syracuse University report suggests yes, federal immigration officials say no, and some lawmakers are calling “amnesty” nonetheless.

First, the report: Issued in recent days by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University, the number of deportation proceedings begun in the nation’s immigration courts between October and December of last year (the first quarter of federal fiscal year 2012) “fell sharply to only 39,331 — down 33 percent from 58,639 filings recorded the previous quarter,” a drop of more than 10,000 cases filed. The report notes that since filings are typically lower at that time of year, the numbers were adjusted for seasonal drop-off. It continues:

This substantial drop may have been caused by the steps needed to implement the June 17, 2011 agency directive on prosecutorial discretion or as the indirect effect of the review announced August 18, 2011 by the Administration of all pending Immigration Court cases. The objective of these twin initiatives was to better target enforcement resources on high priority cases.

Not necessarily the case, say federal immigration officials, for whom a number of recent Syracuse University reports have been a thorn in the side. As with other recent reports from TRAC, the report uses data from the Executive Office for Immigration Review, which administers the immigration courts, and this is “essentially incomplete data,” said Gillian Christensen, a spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Washington D.C.

According to Christensen, “their data is only focused on the initiation of formal removal proceedings in the Executive Office for Immigration Review. It ignores the fact that we regularly remove individuals without going through formal proceedings: voluntary return, voluntary deportation, reinstatement of old removal orders. We can voluntarily return someone without going through the formal initiation of proceedings.”

The Obama administration has said that it counts voluntary removals in its overall record-breaking deportation tallies. The makeup of overall removals in any given period can shift, Christensen said, making a quarter-by-quarter comparison difficult to read.

As for the prosecutorial discretion reviews of roughly 300,000 deportation cases to be conducted in the nation’s immigration courts, as announced last summer by the Obama administration, a pilot program began in two cities, Denver and Baltimore, last November. The pilot lasted six weeks, with a little more than 1,600 cases recommended for closure once it concluded last month. But these were already pending deportation cases, which wouldn’t factor into a dip in new cases filed.

Experts have said it’s too soon to see a trend, but some lawmakers have taken the data to heart. On the House Judiciary Committee website, committee chair Lamar Smith, a Texas Republican, said in a statement linking to the TRAC report: “Last quarter’s data confirms what we knew all along: President Obama is recklessly determined to grant backdoor amnesty to thousands of illegal immigrants.”

Also in dispute is whether ICE, as the report points out, is focusing less on criminals. The Obama administration has stated that its goal is to deport criminals, with less of an emphasis on immigrants with clean records. In a similar report last year, TRAC pointed to fewer criminal cases in the immigration courts; ICE’s reply was that those deportation cases in which a crime is pointed out as part of the case make up just a portion of criminal removals overall, since many people with criminal records are removed administratively. From an ICE statement today:

When removing individuals who have been convicted of a crime and who have no lawful immigration status, like those who illegally cross our border or overstay their visa, ICE is not required to file charging documents in immigration court asserting criminal grounds of removal.

The entire TRAC report can be viewed here.

FILED UNDER: Deportation, Deportation reviews, ICE, Prosecutorial discretion, TRAC
January 4, 2012 | 1:54 PM | By

TRAC vs. ICE: Report claims more disparity in deportation stats

The back-and-forth between immigration authorities and a university center that tracks federal data has become more heated, after Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) sent out a press release today once again accusing the federal government of inflating its deportation statistics and withholding public information.

In a report last month, TRAC accused U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement of inflating its tally of criminal deportations. ICE officials criticized the report as “wildly misleading,” saying that deportees’ criminal histories aren’t always found in administrative removal records, hence the disparity in numbers.

In its release today, TRAC claims that an examination of case-by-case records provided by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) reveals that “many fewer individuals were apprehended, deported or detained by the agency than were claimed in its official statements — congressional testimony, press releases, and the agency’s latest 2010 Yearbook of Immigration Statistics.” From the release:

In its initial FOIA request in May 2010, TRAC asked for specific information about all individuals who had been arrested, detained, charged, returned or removed from the country for the period beginning October 1, 2004 to date. In its initial and incomplete response, however, ICE so far has only provided TRAC with information through FY 2005. The agency said it would provide detailed information about the more recent years later.

When compared with various public statements by the agency, however, TRAC’s analysis of this limited case-by-case information provided found vast discrepancies. Among them: ICE statements claimed almost five times more individual apprehensions than revealed in the data, as well as 24 times more individuals deported and 34 times more detentions.

According to TRAC, its analysis of fiscal year 2005 data counted 6,906 deportations, while ICE logged 166,075. There were similar discrepancies between the official totals for apprehensions (21,339 vs. 102,034) and for immigrants detained (6,778 vs. 233,417).

Why the huge gap?

Last month, ICE officials cited vastly different accounting methods: When counting criminal deportations, for example, the agency includes administrative deportations in which the individual had a past conviction. However, if the crime doesn’t factor into the deportation case, it’s typically not found in the immigration court records, which the TRAC report analyzed. Many immigrants, particularly those who are in the country illegally, are removed solely on administrative grounds, whether or not there’s a criminal history.

TRAC maintained in its release today that “this was not an inconsequential bookkeeping problem.” A statement from ICE is forthcoming. The press release can be viewed here.

ICE’s response: The agency won’t likely have a mathematical explanation for the disparity until tomorrow. However, an agency spokeswoman stressed that ICE is still in the process of releasing data to TRAC. Agency spokeswoman Gillian Christensen said the numbers today were inaccurate and “based on conclusions gathered from an incomplete set of data,” and that ICE “has worked diligently to respond to their requests for extremely large amounts of data and related information.”

“Nevertheless,” she wrote, “ICE is committed to continuing to provide data that confirms the accuracy of the agency’s removal numbers. We stand by our record.”

FILED UNDER: ICE, Record deportations, TRAC, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
December 7, 2011 | 12:21 PM | By

New report counts fewer criminal deportations; ICE calls analysis ‘misleading’

In October, the Obama administration released deportation statistics indicating that a majority of the record 396,906 people deported in fiscal year 2011, which ended Sept. 30, had criminal records. Nearly 55 percent were counted as being convicted of felonies or misdemeanors, with the percentage of criminal removals overall up 89 percent since 2008.

But the numbers in a new report based on immigration court records from Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) add up differently.

According to the TRAC analysis, of all the deportation proceedings initiated between July and September of this year in the nation’s immigration courts, only 13.8 involved individuals charged with having engaged in criminal activity. The analysis also counts fewer removals involving criminal charges this year, as opposed to fiscal year 2010.

Federal immigration officials, one of whom today called the analysis “wildly misleading,” attribute the difference to the accounting used. First, a table and excerpt from the TRAC report:

Screen shot from trac.syr.edu

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Not only has ICE targeted relatively few criminals as the basis for seeking deportation in these court proceedings, but this proportion has been declining steadily throughout the past year: 15.8 percent were charged with engaging in criminal activity during the first quarter period (October – December 2010), 15.1 percent during the second quarter (January – March 2011), 14.9 percent during the third quarter (April – June 2011), and finally 13.8 percent during the fourth quarter (July – September 2011).

The average rate across the four quarters for FY 2011 was 14.9 percent.

Why the lower numbers? According to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the report counts deportation proceedings in which individuals’ criminal records are taken into account. But many immigrants, particularly those who are in the country illegally (versus legal residents), are removed solely on administrative grounds of violating immigration rules, even when immigration authorities are aware there is a prior criminal record.

“TRAC’s report is wildly misleading” wrote ICE spokeswoman Gillian Christensen in an emailed statement. “When removing individuals who have been convicted of a crime and who have no lawful immigration status, like those who illegally cross our border or overstay their visa, ICE is not required to file charging documents in immigration court asserting criminal grounds of removal.”

TRAC maintains in the report that the court data casts doubt on the Obama administration’s assertion that it is effectively targeting criminals. As for “immigration only” charges in deportation proceedings, i.e. administrative removal charges, those account for 83.4 percent of the total in the report, up slightly for fiscal year 2011 over the previous year.

The data in the report is based on case-by-case immigration court records obtained through the Freedom of Information Act from the Executive Office for Immigration Review, which administers the immigration court system.

FILED UNDER: Politics/Justice, Criminal deportations, Deportations, ICE, Record deportations, Syracuse University, TRAC
July 28, 2011 | 11:19 AM | By

Longer immigration court wait times, with especially long waits in L.A.

Source: Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse

The time it takes for immigration courts to decide cases continues to stretch, with average wait times getting longer by the year lately, according to a new report. And longest waits are in Los Angeles.

This is according to federal data obtained by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) at Syracuse University in New York, which keeps tabs on federal enforcement spending.

According to the report released today, average immigration court wait times grew longer during the first six months of federal fiscal year 2011, which began last Oct. 1. During this time the average wait for an immigrant’s case to be decided reached 302 days, a jump of 7.5 percent in the last six months and almost 30 percent higher than the average time it took in FY 2009.

Some courts have far worse backlogs than others. From the report:

During the first six months of FY 2011, the court with the longest overall decision time was Los Angeles, where cases averaged 745 days to decide. The New York court posted the second longest decision time of 646 days, followed by Philadelphia where cases averaged 600 days to decide. The Phoenix court was fourth (583 days) while the Portland court was fifth (531 days).

The same five courts had the longest average decision times for cases resulting in removal orders. However, their order was slightly different: New York (602 days), Los Angeles (532 days), Portland (521 days), Phoenix (464 days), and Philadelphia (440 days).

The length of time immigrants must wait varies by their country of origin. Particularly in deportation cases, different countries have different rules determining which deportees they take back, if any, and this affects wait times. From the report:

Among nationalities, and limiting comparisons to the 50 countries with the most cases decided during the first half of FY 2011, Armenians currently had the longest decision times averaging 955 days – more than three times the national average of 302 days. Other nationalities within the top five for their overall average decision times were Indonesia (930 days), China (691 days), Bangladesh (685 days), and Mali (682 days).

The top 50 nationalities with the most cases that had the fastest average decision times were: Mexico (173 days), Honduras (217 days), Cuba (230 days), Canada (264 days), and Costa Rica (279 days).

The amount of time it takes for the Executive Office for Immigration Review to decide an immigrant’s fate is often reflected in how much time that person spends in immigrant detention, though some of the shortest waits posted were in detention center courts. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement records through late May show that the average length of stay in immigrant detention has dropped since 2007, as the Obama administration has carried out a record number of deportations in the past couple of years.

However, the bulk of these removals are to Mexico, the country whose nationals spend the least amount of time on average waiting for an immigration court decision.

FILED UNDER: Health/Education, EOIR, Executive Office for Immigration Review, ICE, Immigrant detention, Immigration courts, Record deportations, Syracuse University, TRAC, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement