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Since 2014, almost 40,000 cases have been closed by "rocket docket" courts, which aim to expeditiously push immigration proceedings involving families with children, like Sandra Gutierrez, through the legal pipeline, according to a recent report by Syracuse University's Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC).
The report found that in 70 percent of those cases, which are decided by immigration judges, detained migrant families were processed through immigration courts without legal representation. Such processing often only takes a few weeks, even less, in many cases, according to the report.
Image: U.S. Central America Immigrant Children
Immigrant families, many of them mothers with children, board a bus headed to the downtown bus station in McAllen, Texas on April 30, 2015.
At least 43 percent of those cases ended with a decision, made in as little as 24 days, or less, to deport—whether or not they were present at the hearing.
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