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The goal of Obama’s so-called “rocket docket” policy, instituted in 2014 in response to the flood of undocumented immigrants from Central America, was to direct a “surge of resources” to ensure “cases are processed fairly and as quickly as possible, ensuring the protection of asylum seekers and refugees while enabling the prompt removal of individuals who do not qualify for asylum or other forms of relief from removal,” Obama said in a memo.
But a recent report by Syracuse University's Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse found that 70 percent of these cases were processed through immigration courts without legal representation. The processing took only a few weeks or less, according to the report. In at least 43 percent of those cases, decisions were made with or without the asylum-seekers present at the hearing.
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