Half-Million Aliens Skipped Immigration Court Under Biden
Even as the prior administration tanked 700K other cases; a symptom of a deliberately broken immigration system
By Andrew R. Arthur on April 16, 2025
The Washington Times has reported that the backlog of cases pending before U.S. immigration courts declined for the first time in 17 years as the Trump administration continues to lock down the border. Here’s a fact I omitted in my assessment of that decline: More than a half-million aliens failed to appear at removal hearings during the last administration, even as Biden’s DHS tanked 700,000 other pending immigration court cases. Those 500,000-plus no-shows are a symptom of the Biden administration’s effort to deliberately break our immigration system, and it will now take years to get that system back on track.
How Immigration Court Is Supposed to Work
Congress established the rules that govern removal proceedings in the nation’s 71 immigration courts in section 240 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA).
Under the INA, those proceedings begin when DHS files a “Notice to Appear” (NTA) — a document similar to a statement of charges in a criminal matter — with the immigration court having jurisdiction over the alien.
The court then holds an “initial master calendar” hearing for the alien (deemed a “respondent” in those proceedings), which is akin to an arraignment in criminal court.
At the initial master calendar hearing, the immigration judge (IJ) explains the respondent’s rights and — assuming there are no continuances for the respondent to find counsel or for attorney preparation —the respondent is sworn and pleads to the allegations in the NTA.
https://cis.org/Arthur/HalfMillion-Aliens-Skipped-Immigration-Court-Under-Biden
