99% of Asylum Claims Fail at ‘Dedicated Docket’
Ninety-nine percent of border crossers in a “Dedicated Docket” program had invalid asylum claims, according to a new report. Whether these aliens will ever be deported remains an open question, but one thing is certain: It isn’t shortening the ever-lengthening backlog in immigration courts.
The Departments of Justice (DOJ) and Homeland Security (DHS) revived the Dedicated Docket a year ago to “expeditiously and fairly make decisions in immigration cases of families.” But the early results – a bare 1 percent of asylum claims were approved – could be a stumbling block for an administration determined to bring more illegal aliens into this country.
A study of dedicated docket results in Los Angeles included 2,410 migrant families as of Feb. 1. Most were from Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras, and Colombia, with children representing nearly half of the total.
“Why is [the administration] using an immigration court program that wasn’t successful when it was tried by two previous administrations with much smaller immigration court backlogs?” wonders Nolan Rappaport, who wrote decisions for the Board of Immigration Appeals for 20 years.
“Taking judges away from their regular docket cases will hamper efforts to reduce the backlog in those cases. That will place extra burdens on their judicial colleagues who are handling the general docket cases. This is likely to promote aimless docket reshuffling.”
Meantime, immigration court backlogs are ballooning with sketchy asylum claims. Pending cases have soared by 400,000 since Joe Biden entered the White House.
Rappaport estimates that 500 more judges (almost double the current complement) are needed to clear the 1.7 million existing cases – and he figures it would still take until 2030 to accomplish that, at the earliest.
Of course, this administration has not asked for anywhere near that many new judges, even as it continues admitting migrants in unprecedented numbers.
Adding to the absurdity, more than 70 percent of illegal aliens ordered deported by the Dedicated Docket program failed to show up for their asylum hearings.
Former acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Director Tom Homan says that while Team Biden touts its courtroom shuffle, illegal aliens like their chances.
Homan notes that while roughly 2.5 million migrants have been encountered at the southern border since Biden took office, ICE has deported just 26,000. There is no indication that the Dedicated Docket will change those 1-in-100 odds.