Data Lacking on Why Immigration Courts Not Overwhelmed with Family Cases
Given reports on the number of families arrested at the border, why aren’t there more of these cases before the Immigration Courts? No one seems to know precisely what happens to each family after members are arrested by the Border Patrol and at ports of entry. In general, DHS itself is responsible for providing “notices to appear” to those arrested, and DHS agencies are also responsible for filing copies of these NTAs, where appropriate, with the Immigration Courts. This is supposed to occur whether or not families remain detained.
NTAs are the “notices to appear” that are given individuals providing official notification that the government is seeking to deport them. DHS agencies – including Customs and Border Protection (CBP), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) – have the authority to issue NTAs, and to file them as needed with the Immigration Courts. Although CBP initially arrests these families at the border and at ports of entry, ICE becomes involved if longer periods of detention are needed. Asylum officers at USCIS also enter the picture as they are responsible for conducting “credible fear” and “reasonable fear” reviews for those seeking asylum.
It appears that the government itself does not actually know what happens to those it arrests at the border. It admits it lacks the ability to reliably follow cases when they pass from one agency of DHS to another – such as CBP to ICE and to USCIS – or to connect those cases when jurisdiction has been passed to the Department of Justice (DOJ) where the Immigration Courts are located. This appears to parallel the difficulties the government has had in reuniting children separated from their parents because separate record systems didn’t pass along relevant information.
In many respects it appears that the Administration continues to be flying blind. Clearly, if agency officials don’t have the data they need, they will be unable to effectively manage the situation, or even to accurately identify what additional personnel and other resources are most urgently needed. They also will be unable to effectively assess the impact of alternative policy choices that may be proposed.
In addition, the public is not being providing sufficient access to the data that is being recorded. A new barrier to public access arose just this month when the Department of Justice decided to review what information was released under the Freedom of Information Act. It stopped providing TRAC with particular case-by-case Immigration Court records tracking the processing of asylum and related applications for relief. Information both on historical as well as new asylum applications are now being withheld during this review. Other vital data TRAC had been routinely receiving and making publicly available on its website are also now being withheld.
As a direct result, TRAC is currently unable to update either its asylum web query tool, or its access tool on representation in Immigration Court by state and county. In addition, several of the fields in its tool that allows the public to drill into details on deportation proceedings, are no longer available.
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Attacks on Due Process fueled by “malicious incompetence” are the real “immigration emergency.” And, unlike the “fake asylum/border crisis” staged by the Kakistocracy, this one is a threat to our national security. Why isn’t anyone being held accountable here?
PWS
04-25-19
The Data EOIR has been providing TRAC is neither a favor nor a frivolous politically correct policy. As a result of the FOIA “OPEN Government Act of 2007”. TRAC submitted a request for electronic data from EOIR cases, in accordance with the law, see https://www.justice.gov/oip/blog/foia-post-2008-congress-passes-amendments-foia
EOIR looked into the request and approved it. We were very impressed with the TRAC proposal, and TRAC has done a wonderful job of informing the public as the FOIA statute intended. This is just another attempt from the most lawless President to destroy American Democracy. “Democracy Dies in the Dark”, says the paper.
TRAC data has been a godsend for those trying to find out what’s really happening in Immigration Court. That’s particularly true now, since EOIR has manipulated and misused data to falsely “reduce” the asylum grant rate to fit the Administration’s bogus narrative about asylum seekers.
Remarkably, even in a system “gamed” against them at every level, asylum seekers who actually manage to get a merits decision (no mean task in a system where “Aimless Docket Reshuffling” punishes many of those with grantable cases) still succeed in one of three cases! And there isn’t any doubt in my mind or that of most informed observers that in a fair system that number would go back up to well over 50% where its was before the Obama Administration sent “Aimless Docket Reshuffling” into high gear during their panic response to the “Border Surge.”
PWS
04-25-19