Children by the tens of thousands are flooding north, clinging to the tops of trains to ride from South and Central America, through Mexico and from there sneaking across the border into the US. While both parties have stressed the need for better border security, clogged immigration courts mean that children entering the US are unlikely to ever be deported.
Although the US officially warns migrants that they will be sent back, few actually are forced to leave the country. Via The Wall Street Journal, data from immigration courts shows that in fiscal year 2013, immigration courts ordered some 3,525 migrant children to be deported and allowed another 888 to return home voluntarily without a court order. In the context of how many illegal immigrants are crossing, that number is just a drop in the proverbial bucket. In each of the last five years, somewhere between 23,000 and 47,000 have been apprehended.
More from the WSJ:
Separate data from the Department of Homeland Security show that in fiscal 2013, about 1,600 children were actually returned to their home countries—less than half the number who were ordered removed—suggesting that some are evading deportation orders.
The head of the immigration court system told a Senate hearing this week that 46% of juveniles failed to appear at their hearings between the start of the 2014 fiscal year last Oct. 1 and the end of June. And court figures show that last year, more than 2,600 out of about 6,400 orders were entered without the juvenile present—in absentia.
The present surge of illegal immigration only stresses an already backlogged system. As of June 30, immigration courts had 41,832 pending juvenile cases, an increase of nearly 12,000 cases in just nine months. In some jurisdictions, court dates are set two to three years in advance.
Read more at The Wall Street Journal.
