Immigration Court Backlog Grows to 1,337,372 Cases
We update our immigration court data every month in order to provide the public with important information about immigration. To improve accessibility to the data, a few months ago we created a new ‘Quick Facts’ tool that provides key data points as clearly as possible. These tools provide easy-to-access data points for journalists writing immigration stories.
We updated those key figures today. Data highlights include the following:
Immigration Courts recorded receiving 126,911 new cases so far in FY 2021 as of May 2021. This compares with 68,260 cases that the court completed during this period.
According to court records, only 3.6% of FY 2021 new cases sought deportation orders based on any alleged criminal activity of the immigrant, apart from possible illegal entry.
At the end of May 2021, 1,337,372 active cases were pending before the Immigration Court.
Los Angeles County, CA, has the most residents — 70,560 — with pending Immigration Court deportation cases (as of the end of May 2021). The next highest counties were Harris County, Texas (62,772), Queens County, New York (42,096), Miami-Dade County, Florida (36,108), and Dallas County, Texas (27,924).
Since Biden canceled the Trump-era MPP program, 10,375 individuals with pending cases were allowed to enter U.S., while 16,138 individuals still remain in Mexico awaiting their court hearing.
So far this fiscal year (through May 2021), immigration judges have issued removal and voluntary departure orders in 40.9% of completed cases, totaling 27,925 deportation orders.
So far in FY 2021 (through May 2021), immigrants from Mexico top list of nationalities with largest number ordered deported. The next highest nationalities were Guatemala (5,484), Honduras (3,449), El Salvador (3,436), and Brazil (614).
Only 20.5% of immigrants, including unaccompanied children, had an attorney to assist them in Immigration Court cases when a removal order was issued.
Immigration judges have held 14,893 bond hearings so far in FY 2021(through May 2021). Of these 4,221 were granted bond.
TRAC’s immigration court Quick Fact tool can be found here. More information about TRAC’s immigration data can be found here under our report “Looking for Immigration Data? TRAC has a Tool for That”.