The State Of The Immigration Courts: Trump Leaves Biden 13 Million Case Backlog In Immigration Courts
When President Donald Trump assumed office, 542,411 people had deportation cases pending before the Immigration Courts. At the start of 2021, that number now stands at 1,290,766nearly two and a half times the level when Trump assumed office just four years ago. Waiting in the wings are another 300,000+ cases that President Trump’s policy changes have decided aren’t finally resolved, but have not yet been placed back on the active docket.
During the four years since Trump assumed power, none of his many policy changes made even a small dent in the pile-up of cases awaiting resolution. While the Trump administration hired many new immigration judges and implemented a range of different strategies aimed in part at reducing the Immigration Court backlog, the backlog grew each month. Some of Trump’s changes in court operations arguably slowed case processing. However, the primary driver of the exploding backlog was not only the lack of immigration judges but the tsunami of new cases filed in court by the Department of Homeland Security.
Even if the Administration halted immigration enforcement entirely, it would still take more than President-Elect Biden’s entire first term in officeassuming pre-pandemic case completion ratesfor the cases now in the active backlog to be completed.
How Long Have Individuals in the Backlog Been Waiting?
average wait until hearing scheduled 1642 days
The Trump Administration’s Separation Of Families
These policies have devastated communities across the country and directly threatened the lives of thousands of individuals – making all of us less safe.
President Trumps attacks on immigrant families started in his campaign, and began to be institutionalized the first week of his Presidency. In January 2017, the Trump Administration issued a series of executive orders that removed all immigration enforcement priorities, ensuring that virtually every undocumented person in the U.S. would become a priority for deportation. Because enforcement priorities have become nonexistent, there is no room left for the individual assessment of immigration cases. Even worse, thousands of undocumented people have been funneled into mass detention centers in appalling conditions, which are unsafe, crowded, and deadly even moreso in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. Reports of abuse in detention have increased, including a horrifying recent whistleblower complaint of women in ICE custody having been forced to undergo sterilizations without their consent. Shortly after President Trump took office, ICE arrests rose by a staggering 30% in FY17, and removal cases involving residents who have been living in the U.S. for longer periods of time have increased dramatically, too. One example is the increased detention and deportation of Black Mauritanians to statelessness, torture and slavery, many of whom have lived in the U.S. for more than 20 years.
What Would It Take For Donald Trump To Deport 11 Million And Build A Wall
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By , Alan Rappeport and Matt Richtel
Big promises are to be expected from presidential candidates, but reality often intrudes. The elder George Bush broke the no new taxes pledge that helped lead to his election. And Barack Obamas administration has yet to live up to his prediction that his nomination would go down in history as the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.
Donald J. Trumps vow to restore what he says is Americas lost luster, while perhaps not as flowery, comes with campaign promises that are equally grandiose. But Mr. Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, has typically provided scant details on how he might make good on his promises and ambitious ideas, even the concrete kind, do not always add up.
Central to Mr. Trumps campaign, and to his national security strategy, is his intent to clamp down on illegal immigration, using a vast deportation force to relocate people to the other side of a wall, funded by Mexico, that would stretch nearly the length of the southern border.
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What Changes Has The Administration Implemented
Undermining asylum: The Trump administration has repeatedly imposed new restrictions on asylum seekers, making it nearly impossible for many people to claim protection in the United States. These restrictions include preventing migrants from applying for asylum if they traveled through another country before reaching the U.S. if they didnt apply in the previous country. The administration has also exported its asylum provision obligations to ill-equipped countries like El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala.
In January 2019, the Trump administration began implementing its Remain in Mexico policy, which forces Central Americans seeking asylum to return to Mexicofor an indefinite amount of timewhile their claims are processed. Since the start of the pandemic, the U.S. government has postponed all immigration court hearings, effectively stranding asylum seekers in Mexico. To make matters worse, asylum seekers are still required to go to their port of entry on the day of their previously scheduled court date to receive a new notice to appearor face a deportation order for not showing up. Learn more.
Now the administration is exploiting the pandemic to impose a categorical ban on people seeking asylum, further endangering the lives of migrantsincluding children.
Trump Administration Migrant Detentions
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The Trump administration has detained migrants attempting to enter the United States at the United StatesMexico border. Government reports from the Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General in May 2019 and July 2019 found that migrants had been detained under conditions that failed federal standards. These conditions have included prolonged detention, overcrowding, and poor hygiene and food standards. Some American citizens were also wrongfully detained.
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Background In Business Practices
In March 2016, Trump addressed E-Verify, an online tool provided by the American government to detect if business employees are unauthorized aliens. Trump declared: “I’m using E-Verify on just about every job … I’ll tell you, it works.” In December 2018, The Washington Times reported that in the 565 companies that President Trump had a financial stake in as disclosed in May 2018, only 5 companies used E-Verify. In January 2019, Trump’s son, Eric Trump, said that The Trump Organization was now “instituting E-Verify on all of our properties as soon as possible”.
In November 2017, more court documents regarding the above situation of the Polish workers were unsealed. They showed that a crew of 200 Polish workers had worked on the demolition, and that Trump had ultimately paid a settlement of $1.375 million, including $0.5 million to the union fund, after appealing a judge’s ruling that he was indeed the legal employer of the Polish workers.
In July 2017, Trump’s applied for visas to hire foreign workers – 15 housekeepers, 20 cooks and 35 servers from October 2017 to May 2018. Trump National Golf Club in Jupiter, Florida did the same for 6 cooks.
Ice Releases Data On Immigrants Arrested So Far In Trumps Presidency
An immigration enforcement agency says it has arrested more than 41,000 immigrants known or suspected of being in the country illegally â and close to 75 percent of them were convicted criminals.
Per U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement, of those arrested between Jan. 22 and April 29:
⢠30,473 were convicted criminal aliens, up from 25,786 in the same period in 2016
⢠More than 2,700 convictions were for violent crimes, such as homicide, rape, kidnapping
⢠Among the arrested were one of ICE’s “Most Wanted Fugitives” and MS-13 gang members
“ICE agents and officers have been given clear direction to focus on threats to public safety and national security, which has resulted in a substantial increase in the arrest of convicted criminal aliens,” said ICE acting director Thomas Homan. “However, when we encounter others who are in the country unlawfully, we will execute our sworn duty and enforce the law.
Arrests of non-criminals also increased about 157 percent during this period: from about 4,200 in 2016 to more than 10,800 in 2017.
The data shows the Trump administration is moving forward with its plan to remove criminal undocumented immigrants.
We continue to rate this promise In the Works.
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Immigration Policy Of Donald Trump
| This article is part of a series about |
Immigration policy, including illegal immigration to the United States, was a signature issue of former U.S. presidentDonald Trump‘s presidential campaign, and his proposed reforms and remarks about this issue generated much publicity. Trump has repeatedly said that illegal immigrants are criminals. Despite Trump never explicitly mentioning correlation, critics have argued that there is an increasing amount of evidence that immigration does not correlate with higher crime rates. Entering the US illegally is a federal crime, making the person who does that a criminal.
A hallmark promise of his campaign was to build a substantial wall on the United StatesMexico border and to force Mexico to pay for the wall. Trump has also expressed support for a variety of “limits on legal immigration and guest-worker visas”, including a “pause” on granting green cards, which Trump says will “allow record immigration levels to subside to more moderate historical averages”. Trump’s proposals regarding H-1B visas frequently changed throughout his presidential campaign, but as of late July 2016, he appeared to oppose the H-1B visa program.
Under pressure from the Trump Administration, Mexico and other Latin American countries strengthened their efforts to stop illegal immigration to the U.S.
Restriction Of Asylum On The Grounds Of Gang
On July 11, 2018, new guidance was given to UCSIS officers who interview asylum seekers at the US’ borders and evaluate refugee applications. According to the guidance, asylum claims on the basis of gang-based or domestic violence are unlikely to meet the criterion of persecution “on account of the applicant’s membership to a particular social group”, unless the home government condones the behavior or demonstrates “a complete helplessness to protect the victims”. Furthermore, an applicant’s illegal entry may “weigh against a favorable exercise of discretion”.
The guidance followed an earlier reversal by Jeff Sessions on June 11, 2018 of a decision by the Board of Immigration Appeals granting a battered woman asylum. Sessions had stated that “he mere fact that a country may have problems effectively policing certain crimes such as domestic violence or gang violence or that certain populations are more likely to be victims of crime, cannot itself establish an asylum claim”.Domestic violence victims had been eligible for asylum since 2014.
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Elimination Of Medical Deferred Action
On August 7, 2019 the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service terminated a program called “medical deferred action”, which allowed immigrants to remain in the country temporarily while they or their children receive treatment for serious or life-threatening medical conditions. The only exception was for military families. Without making any public announcement, the service sent letters to multiple families whose children are getting treated under this plan, telling them their permission to be in the country would be revoked in 33 days. Some patients complained they would die if they were not allowed to continue treatment in the United States. Met with public outcry, this policy change was reversed by September. In October 2019, USCIS Acting Director Ken Cuccinelli later testified to a Congressional investigation that he alone had made the decision to end the program.
Trump Signs Executive Order Directing Enforcement Priorities Dhs Issues Enforcement Memo
President Donald Trump signed an executive order Jan. 25 directing the Department of Homeland Security to prioritize the removal of immigrants in the country illegally.
The order set wide parameters on the categories of people who would become a priority, ranging from individuals engaged in terrorist activities to people charged with crimes but not yet convicted.
Trump’s directive makes the “broadest possible definition of ‘criminal alien,'” said David Martin, an emeritus professor of law at the University of Virginia and former principal deputy general counsel at the Department of Homeland Security.
Trump’s executive order said enforcement priorities include “removable aliens” who are or have:
– Described in specific sections of immigration laws: such as individuals convicted of crimes “involving moral turpitude” , engage in terrorist activities, are convicted on weapon charges
– Convicted of any criminal offense
– Charged with any criminal offense, even if the charge has not been resolved
– Committed acts that constitute a chargeable criminal offense
– Engaged in fraud or willful misrepresentation related to any official matter or application before a governmental agency
– Abused programs related to receipt of public benefits
– Subject to final order of removal and,
– Pose a risk to public safety or national security, based on the judgment of an immigration officer.
A DHS memo dated Feb. 20 presented guidance on the new order’s implementation.
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Cases Of American Citizens Detained
American citizens have been detained on suspicion of being illegal immigrants.
In March 2019, Customs and Border Protection detained an American brother-and-sister minors while they were travelling to school from Tijuana, Mexico, to San Ysidro, San Diego in the U.S. The 9-year old girl was detained for 32 hours while CBP were processing her identification. CBP accused the girl of having provided inconsistent information during her inspection. According to the girl, CBP personnel said that she did not look like the person in her passport picture, and accused her of really being her cousin. According to their mother, officers threatened the 14-year old brother with charges of human trafficking and sex trafficking, and made him sign a document alleging that the girl was really his cousin. The boy said he did sign the document so that he could see his sister again. The Mexican consulate assisted in arranging the release of the siblings.
Trump Deportations Lag Behind Obama Levels
In fiscal year 2016, Immigration and Customs Enforcement removed 240,255 people from the country, a rate of more than 20,000 people per month.| Charles Reed/U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement via AP
08/08/2017 08:35 PM EDT
The U.S. is deporting people more slowly than during the Obama administration despite President Donald Trumps vast immigration crackdown, according to new data from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
From Feb. 1 to June 30, ICE officials removed 84,473 people a rate of roughly 16,900 people per month. If deportations continue at the same clip until the fiscal year ends Sept. 30, federal immigration officials will have removed fewer people than they did during even the slowest years of Barack Obamas presidency.
In fiscal year 2016, ICE removed 240,255 people from the country, a rate of more than 20,000 people per month.
In fiscal year 2012 the peak year for deportations under Obama the agency removed an average of roughly 34,000 people per month.
The lower rate of deportations doesnt mean Trump has embraced a hands-off approach to immigration enforcement. But it may mean that deportations are lagging behind arrest rates or removal orders, which by all accounts have soared since Trump took office.
However, an arrest doesnt always translate into a speedy deportation, and several factors have suppressed the removal rate.
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Trump Who Made Immigration A Key Plank Of His 2016 Campaign Is Struggling To Crank Up Deportations
WASHINGTONAfter months of national debate over President s immigration policies, the record of his predecessor is playing a starring role in the race for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.
The spotlight has fallen on President Barack Obamas record on immigrant removals, which included the deportation of nearly three million foreigners during his eight years in the White House, after a debate this week in which the foes of former Vice President Joe Biden challenged him forcefully on the topic.
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Block Us Funding For ‘sanctuary’ Policies
Trump has tried but failed to accomplish his promise to withhold millions of dollars in federal aid to local and state jurisdictions around the country that limit cooperation with federal immigration authorities through so-called “sanctuary” policies.
Trump maintains that the sanctuary policies, adopted by Democrat-controlled cities such as Chicago and New York as well as the state of California, have resulted in violent crimes against Americans committed by immigrants who should have been deported. Jurisdictions that have adopted sanctuary policies argue that immigration enforcement is a federal matter and working hand in hand with federal immigration authorities erodes trust between local police and communities with large immigrant populations.
Several court rulings have blocked Trump’s attempt to withhold millions of dollars in federal aid to jurisdictions that limit cooperation with federal immigration authorities. In June, the Supreme Court let stand California’s sanctuary policy, which the Trump administration said in a lawsuit was unconstitutional.
In the final weeks leading up to the Nov. 3 election, the Trump administration has launched immigration raids aimed at punishing cities with sanctuary policies, among them Los Angeles and Chicago.
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Travel Ban And Refugee Suspension
On January 27, 2017, Trump signed an executive order , titled Protecting the Nation From Terrorist Attacks by Foreign Nationals, that suspended entry for citizens of seven countries for 90 days: Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen, totaling more than 134 million people. The order also stopped the admission of refugees of the Syrian civil war indefinitely, and the entry of all refugees to the United States for 120 days. Refugees who were on their way to the United States when the order was signed were stopped and detained at airports.
Implicated by this order is 8 U.S.C. Sec. 1182 Whenever the President finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate. 8 U.S. Code § 1182 of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952).
On March 6, 2017, Trump signed a revised executive order, that, among other differences with the original order, excluded Iraq, visa-holders, and permanent residents from the temporary suspension and did not differentiate Syrian refugees from refugees from other countries.
