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More than 63,000 unaccompanied minors from other countries are waiting to have their asylum claims heard by U.S. immigration judges. But fewer than 1 in 3 of those minors had an attorney as of the end of last month, according to federal data.
That data, obtained by Syracuse University's Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, shows clearly why that matters: So far this year, more than 7 out of 10 minors who had attorneys were granted asylum in the United States, while only 1 out of 10 minors without an attorney was allowed to stay.
More than 13,000 minors have been sent back to their countries over the past three years, according to data from the Department of Justice's Executive Office of Immigration Review, obtained by TRAC through Freedom of Information Act requests. The bulk of them have been children from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador, countries that have produced a surge over the past three years of children and families fleeing violence. Ninety-two percent of those still waiting to have their claims heard are from those three Central American nations.
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