Courting Disaster
By Mark Metcalf March 2017
Mark H. Metcalf is formerly a judge on the Miami Immigration Court. He served in posts at the Justice and Defense Departments in the administration of George W. Bush. He is the author of "Built to Fail: Deception and Disorder in America's Immigration Courts" (Center for Immigration Studies 2011) and numerous articles on immigration court dynamics. He is a veteran of Iraq and a Kentucky prosecutor. The author thanks Tracy Nicole Kindred, B.A. Criminal Justice, and M.A., Criminal Justice, Eastern Kentucky University, for her assistance in compiling the statistical references in this article.
Executive Summary
U.S. immigration enforcement and adjudication are failing. American immigration courts have the highest failure to appear rates of any courts in the country. Over the last 20 years, 37 percent of all aliens free pending trial failed to appear for their hearings. From the 2,498,375 foreign nationals outside detention during their court proceedings, 1,219,959 were ordered removed, 75 percent of them (918,098) for failing to appear. Only 25 percent of this group — some 301,861 people — actually litigated their claims. Trial courts are three times more likely to issue removal orders for failure to appear than removal orders based upon the merits of fully litigated claims. Nearly 46,000 people each year disappeared from court.1 Deportation orders for failure to appear are the largest group of orders issued by immigration courts outside detention facilities.2 From 1996 through 2015, removal orders for failure to appear numbered 918,098. Among those who absconded from court were 3,095 aliens from the 36 countries that promote terrorism. A disproportionate number — 338 altogether — came from those countries the U.S. State Department labels state sponsors of terrorism: Iran, Sudan, and Syria. As populations from countries that promote terrorism have increased since 9/11 — from naturalized citizens, immigrants,3 and refugees4 — plots and acts of Islam-inspired terrorism have also increased, more than twice as many under Barack Obama than under George W. Bush. Unexecuted removal orders now number 953,506 — a 58 percent increase since 2002. An average of 25,107 unexecuted orders of removal were added each year through 2015.5
http://cis.org/metcalf-courting-disaster
