“Instead of adjudicating these cases, denying invalid asylum claims, and ordering aliens removed from the United States, the Biden-Harris Administration has directed its immigration judges to simply not adjudicate them,” the report stated.
The House Judiciary Committee on Thursday released an interim staff report on how the Biden-Harris administration “uses the nation’s immigration courts to advance an open-borders agenda” through a massive backlog in the immigration courts and the dismissal of cases.
The committee wrote that since Biden took office, there have been more than 3.7 million new immigration court cases since the beginning of fiscal year 2021, which began in October of 2020. “The majority of those cases are based on claims that ultimately will prove unsuccessful,” the report stated, noting that of the adjudicated cases in fiscal year 2023, just 14 percent of them resulted in an asylum grant. The remaining cases were “cases denied, abandoned, dismissed, terminated, withdrawn, or administratively closed.”
“The Biden-Harris Administration has used the immigration court backlog as an excuse to allow even more aliens to remain in the country. Instead of actually adjudicating illegal aliens’ cases based on the merits of aliens’ claims for relief—such as whether an alien has a valid and successful asylum claim—immigration judges under the Biden-Harris Administration have been tasked with rubberstamping case dismissals, case closures, and case terminations, all of which allow illegal aliens to remain in the United States without immigration consequences,” the report stated.
Through oversight conducted by the Judiciary Committee and its Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement since 2023, it has been revealed that the administration “has used administrative maneuvering in immigration court proceedings to allow nearly 1 million illegal aliens to remain in the US indefinitely.”
To “mask” the increase in new cases created by the Biden-Harris admin’s border crisis, the administration “has empowered ICE attorneys to pursue or agree to—and immigration judges to grant—mass dismissals, terminations, and closures of immigration cases.”
A dismissal is “requested by ICE when the agency ‘makes a determination that they’re not going to proceed forward’” in a particular case, termination “ends an alien’s immigration court removal proceedings,” and administrative closure indefinitely “pauses an alien’s removal proceedings by removing the case from an immigration judge’s calendar.” All three of these instances allow “aliens to remain in the US indefinitely,” the report stated.
From the beginning of the administration through July 31, 2023, immigration judges administratively closed 71,465 cases. Immigration judges also dismissed 459,356 cases and terminated 172,645 cases through June 30, 2024. “The pace of case dismissals, terminations, and closures increased every year under the Biden-Harris Administration,” with just over 5,000 cases being administratively closed from Biden’s inauguration through the end of fiscal year 2021, 35,775 cases being closed in fiscal year 2022, and 30,476 cases being closed in the first 10 months of fiscal year 2023. Similar skyrocketing numbers were seen for terminations and case dismissals.
“Without adjudicating cases and ordering aliens removed from the United States, immigration judges’ mass granting of dismissals, terminations, and closures ensures that aliens can remain in the US indefinitely. Even worse, the majority of the aliens in those cases likely never would have been able to establish any legal basis to remain in the country,” the report stated.
“Instead of adjudicating these cases, denying invalid asylum claims, and ordering aliens removed from the United States, the Biden-Harris Administration has directed its immigration judges to simply not adjudicate them,” the report later added.
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