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The new look at this year’s cases comes from researchers at Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, which specializes in federal law enforcement statistics. TRAC obtained the data from the Justice Department through a Freedom of Information Act request.
TRAC’s figures show that while prosecution referrals made by CBP began to dip over time on Obama’s watch, they turned around at the beginning of this year and started an upward trend. The chart above depicts this pattern since November. The month-to-month reporting of ICE cases, meanwhile, is erratic by comparison but nonetheless shows a similar hike that started around January and ultimately led to the two-month, record-breaking high.
In a story about TRAC’s new analysis, the Associated Press pointed to statistics from the Department of Homeland Security showing that as of January 2009, about one million fewer illegal immigrations (10.8 million total estimated) were residing in the country compared to a 2007 peak. Deportations have nonetheless climbed to new levels and stayed there during the Obama administration, more than doubling from 186,000 in 2007 to 388,000 last year.
Immigration enforcement cases also continue to clog the federal docket, jumping even in U.S. court districts not located near the southwest border with Mexico, according to TRAC. New cases in non-border districts climbed over 50 percent between February and April of this year to 1,148, while the rate nationwide during that time went up 42 percent.
Figures in chart courtesy of the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University.
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