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  Policy and Public Interest Groups
Migration Policy Insitute
January 2013

Immigration Enforcement in the United States: The Rise of a Formidable Machinery
By Doris Meissner, Donald M. Kerwin, Muzaffar Chishti and Claire Bergeron


Over the last decade, the number of criminal prosecutions for immigration-related violations has grown at an unprecedented rate. Today more than half of all federal criminal prosecutions are brought for immigration-related crimes. The spike in immigration-related prosecutions can be partly credited to Operation Streamline, a Border Patrol Initiative that seeks to deter illegal migration by prosecuting unauthorized border crossers instead of engaging in the traditional practice of granting voluntary return. A preminary analysis of the prosecutorial discretion policy has found that immigration courts have issued fewer removal orders, and roughly 1,801 cases have been administratively closed pursuant to the policy. Nonetheless, the backlog in cases pending before the immigration courts has increased, and as of March 2012 stood at a record 305,556 cases. ....[citing TRAC research.


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