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The latest order from President Barack Obama’s administration: Prioritize and speed up hearings on removal of these unaccompanied minors, whose apprehensions total 57,000 so far this fiscal year.
Immigration courts have a record backlog of 375,500 cases — both juveniles and adults from all countries, said Juan Osuna, director of the Executive Office for Immigration Review at the U.S. Department of Justice. The numbers have doubled since 2008.
“We are facing the largest caseload that the [EOIR] has ever seen,” said Osuna, testifying on Capitol Hill two weeks ago.
Texas immigration courts are among the nation’s busiest. Since 2005, Texas judges have presided over a quarter of the nation’s deportation cases involving juveniles, according to data analyzed by the Syracuse University-based Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, or TRAC, a national research center.
Texas immigration courts are also among the nation’s toughest. In Texas, two-thirds of immigrants, including adults and juveniles, are ordered deported, according to TRAC. The national average is about 50 percent; in California, it’s almost 39 percent.
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