According to data compiled by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) at Syracuse University, less than 40% of illegal aliens who are standing before a federal immigration judge for deportation orders actually end up being deported.
Specifically, 37% of illegal aliens in immigration court are being deported. John Binder of Breitbart News, noted that 63% of illegal aliens in immigration court “are being allowed to remain in the U.S. by either being given immigration relief or having their case closed or terminated.”
He also contrasted the radical shift in numbers from 2020 and 2021:
For perspective, in fiscal year 2020, more than 7-in-10 illegal aliens in immigration court were ordered deported while fewer than 3-in-10 were allowed to remain in the U.S. In fiscal year 2019, more than 72 percent of illegal aliens in immigration court were ordered deported and only 28 percent were allowed to remain in the U.S.
Per the data, there has been a 47% reduction in the number of deportation orders given to illegal aliens that are currently in immigration court since Biden was installed as president. This stands in stark contrast to the Trump administration, which despite some faults here and there, still maintained an immigration enforcement infrastructure.
Similarly, the number of illegal aliens in immigration court who the government has allowed to stay in the US has grown by 113% since the fiscal year of 2020.
Binder added some context to this reduction in deportation orders:
The drop in deportation orders comes after the Biden administration has issued memos to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) attorneys, immigration judges, and the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) ordering them to use “prosecutorial discretion” against illegal aliens.
Under this memo, ICE attorneys have to review community contributions, humanitarian factors, a pregnancy, and the illegal alien’s age in order to determine if they’re going to seek deportation orders against an illegal alien.
Former immigration judge Andrew Arthur noted that the memo for immigration judges and the BIA requests that they ask ICE if the illegal alien they’re dealing with in immigration court is a “removal priority” for the agency.
“[W]hy would an [immigration judge] care about ICE’s removal priorities? I was an [immigration judge] for more than eight years, through both Republican and Democratic administrations, and ICE’s priorities shifted constantly,” Arthur asked. “I only cared about the case that was in front of me at that moment.”
The Biden administration recognizes that passing amnesty in Congress is going to be a hard sell, so they’re turning to clever administrative tweaks to ram their unpopular mass migration policies through. This illustrates the importance of having an immigration patriot in the executive branch who can prevent such destructive policies from being carried out.
Liberty conservatives and America First populists should start thinking long-term and build the infrastructure necessary to create a national populist trifecta in Congress to ensure that they face zero gridlock when it comes to passing immigration restriction policy.
