Deportation orders down
Deportations initially ordered by immigration court judges have dropped by more than 40 percent since fiscal year 2009
2009: 178,270
2010: 160,295
2011: 154,762
2012: 125,239
2013: 99,611
Meanwhile, the backlog of pending cases in the nation’s immigration courts has grown by 33 percent since fiscal year 2009.
Nation/Atlanta/Stewart Detention Center in South Georgia
2009: 233,707
2010: 262,661
2011: 298,063
2012: 327,429
2013: 350,330/10,491/251
The workload — or deportation cases, bond requests, motions and other matters brought before immigration courts — has dropped by 17 percent nationwide since fiscal year 2009.
Nation/Atlanta/Stewart Detention Center in South Georgia
2009: 328,619
2010: 323,211
2011: 338,471
2012: 311,984/6,284/11,200
2013: 271,279/4,368/8,225
The numbers of deportation, removal and exclusion cases the government has brought to immigration courts have dropped by 26 percent since fiscal year 2009:
Nation/Atlanta/Stewart Detention Center in South Georgia
2009: 254,537
2010: 246,304
2011: 237,558
2012: 211,199
2013: 187,678/3,175/6,044
Nationwide deportations from the interior/at the border
2009: 237,941/151,893
2010: 229,235/163,627
2011: 223,755/173,151
2012: 180,970/228,879
2013: 133,551/235,093
* By federal fiscal year
Sources: Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review and the Homeland Security Department
The number of deportations ordered by the nation’s immigration courts has dropped by more than 40 percent since 2009, as the Obama administration has shifted the focus of its enforcement efforts, a new government report shows.
The Justice Department’s report comes as the White House is taking fire from two sides for its approach. Republicans are accusing it of watering down enforcement, while immigrant rights activists are complaining too many people — including parents and children — are being deported. Hundreds of these activists marched through downtown Atlanta this month.
This week, President Barack Obama chided House Republicans for refusing to act on immigration overhaul legislation passed by the Democratic-led Senate that would include a 13-year pathway to citizenship. Republican House Majority Leader Eric Cantor accused the president of playing politics and indicated the Senate’s legislation and “amnesty efforts” are dead.
In the fiscal year ending in September, immigration judges initially ordered 99,611 “removals,” or deportations, down from 178,270 in fiscal year 2009, according to the Justice Department’s Fiscal Year 2013 Statistics Yearbook.
The workload in Georgia’s immigration courts — including deportation cases, bond requests, motions and other matters — dropped by 28 percent during the same time period.
Officials cited several reasons for the drop in deportations ordered by the courts. Among them: More immigrants are hiring attorneys to fight their expulsions, and the court cases are becoming increasingly complex.
At the same time, the Obama administration has been sending fewer deportation, removal and “exclusion” cases to the courts. That number is down 26 percent, from 254,537 in fiscal year 2009 to 187,678 during the last fiscal year.
The numbers dropped as the Obama administration shifted the focus of its enforcement toward convicted criminals, national security threats and recent border crossers. Meanwhile, the government has been beefing up border security. And during the past two fiscal years, most deportations have started at the nation’s borders, not from the country’s interior, federal records show.
Under pressure from immigrant rights activists, Obama recently announced Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson is reviewing whether the nation’s deportation policies can be carried out more humanely. A spokesman for Johnson said the secretary “is committed to enforcing our immigration laws effectively and sensibly, in line with our values, and is already assessing if there are additional areas where we can further align our enforcement policies with our goal of sound law enforcement practice that prioritizes public safety.”
Cristina Jimenez, the managing director of United We Dream, which is seeking relief from deportation for immigrants living illegally in the U.S., criticized the Obama administration’s record. Jimenez said too many families with roots in the U.S. are being split up through deportations.
“There are a lot of problems with the system that the administration has put in place for detention and deportation,” she said.
Jessica Vaughan, the director of policy studies for the Center for Immigration Studies, a research group that advocates tighter immigration controls, responded to the criticism Jimenez and other activists have been lodging against the White House.
“It’s in their interest to make it sound like enforcement is much tougher than in the past because they believe that strengthens the case for an amnesty or for executive action” for relief, she said. “But the reality is they are pretty much getting what they want already from the Obama administration, which is a near moratorium on deportations from the interior anyway.”
Meanwhile, the nation’s backlog of pending immigration court cases has grown by 50 percent since fiscal year 2009 to 350,330. Officials at the Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review blamed a recent federal hiring freeze. The agency is planning to hire 30 more immigration judges.
“The cases continue to get increasingly complicated as the legal precedent changes,” said Dana Leigh Marks, a San Francisco-based immigration judge and president of the National Association of Immigration Judges. “And you have more factors that you need to apply, so the cases end up taking longer and needing more analysis and yet the number of judges has continued to decline.”
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