The records further show that as the Immigration Court backlogs and wait times have expanded, the issue of whether these individuals should remain locked up for many months and even years while their cases are pending is garnering increased public and legal attention.

Based on the court's own case-by-case records about each custody hearing that is then matched with parallel records on the outcome in subsequent removal proceedings, the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) at Syracuse University has undertaken an unusual and very detailed examination of these proceedings over the last 20 years.

TRAC's analysis shows that at the present time - for those who posted bond and were then released - all but a relatively small proportion of them show up for their court hearings. In addition, most of the individuals who are released on bond prevail and are not found to be deportable. During FY 2015, for example, only 14 percent failed to turn up at their subsequent court hearing, and fully two out of every three (68%) of those released won their case and were found not to be deportable.

For the full report on these outcomes, as well as detailed tables tracking results in bond hearings and bond amounts, go to:

http://trac.syr.edu/immigration/reports/438/

If you want to be sure to receive notifications whenever updated data become available, sign up at:

http://tracfed.syr.edu/cgi-bin/tracuser.pl?pub=1&list=imm

or follow us on Twitter @tracreports or like us on Facebook:

http://facebook.com/tracreports

TRAC is self-supporting and depends on foundation grants, individual contributions and subscription fees for the funding needed to obtain, analyze and publish the data we collect on the activities of the US Federal government. To help support TRAC's ongoing efforts, go to:

http://trac.syr.edu/cgi-bin/sponsor/sponsor.pl