The deportation cases against about 200,000 migrants under President Joe Biden were dismissed by immigration judges due to the fact that the Department of Homeland Security could not manage to file the required paperwork before their court dates, as per a recent report.
How Did This Happen?
Further, the report released by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University states that “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.”
While calling it “troubling”, the research organization said that there was an “almost total lack of transparency on where and why these DHS failures occurred.”
Adding, “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.”
Basically, the NTAs (notices to appear) are issued when they catch migrants crossing the border and coming into the US illegally.
Further, they assign a hearing date to the migrants who are looking for asylum.
This basically gives them a chance to explain to an immigration judge why they should not be deported.
It is noteworthy here that the NTAs must be filed before the migrant is asked to appear for the hearing.
According to the TRAC report, “Almost all Immigration Court cases are removal cases for which DHS must file an NTA for the case to go forward.”
Interestingly, during Biden’s tenure, cases dismissed for failing to file NTAs sprung from from 6,482 in 2020 to 33,802 in 2021.
During 2022, the amount of no NTAs was 79,592 which fell to 68,869 in 2023.
This year also as many as 10,598 deportation cases had to be dismissed because of no NTAs.
The report reveals that the dismissals for 1-in-4 migrants are rectified by the DHS where NTAs were not filed.
Not only that, the second NTA on almost 2,000 occasions was filed late.
The report noted, “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.”
Why Would This Happen?
According to TRAC, giving authority to Border Patrol agents and other DHS personnel to schedule immigration hearings may be leading to the problem.
The report states, “Ten years ago, DHS’s failure to file an NTA before the scheduled first hearing was rare. However, the frequency increased once Border Patrol and other DHS personnel were given access to the Immigration Court’s Interactive Scheduling System (ISS).”
TRAC found that “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.”
Adding, “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.”
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 noted.
Adding,“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.”
