Washington D.C. – Over 350,000 migrants who entered the U.S. illegally have had their immigration court cases dismissed, allowing them to go free without a verdict on the merits of their entry.
A top Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) adviser, Kerry Doyle, circulated a memo in 2022 instructing prosecutors to dismiss cases for migrants who are not found to be national security threats, the New York Post first reported.
As a result, that year nearly 103,000 migrants had their cases dismissed – allowing them to walk free into the U.S. without an immigration court judge’s verdict on the merits of their asylum claim.
Later in 2023, that number of dismissed cases skyrocketed to 149,000.
So far in fiscal year 2024, 114,00 cases have been terminated without a verdict, according to the report.
President Biden’s administration has allowed 77 percent of migrants who claim asylum to stay in the United States according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), a non-profit that scours immigration court filings.
