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Pedro "Peter" Morales -- who was illegally brought to the U.S. by his parents when he was 7 -- was relieved to be back home in North Georgia. But those happy feelings have given way to anxiety. He still does not have legal status in the U.S. And the government won’t permit him to work legally here.
His situation stems from the federal government’s efforts to shrink a massive backlog in the nation’s immigration courts, totaling 306,010 cases as of last month. The government is shifting more of its focus toward deporting violent criminals, fugitives from immigration authorities, recent border crossers and people who have re-entered the country illegally.
Morales’ deportation case is among 2,722 the government has closed as part of this effort so far, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement figures show. Of those, 41 were from Atlanta’s immigration court, according to Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse -- a research organization that monitors the federal government.
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