Comparing data from the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security, the National Review Online is reporting that the Justice Department has no record for at least half of the Unaccompanied Alien Children who illegally crossed the U.S. border since 2013. The DOJ's Executive Office for Immigration Review shows receipts for 41,952 UACs since the beginning of 2013, but Border Patrol data show that there have been more than 85,000 UACs apprehended at the border over the same period of time.
The situation is far worse for the current fiscal year and ongoing border surge. According to the data, only 36% of the records for apprehended UACs from the start of FY2014 through June have been received by the Department of Justice.
The discrepancy in data could indicate that the government is only issuing Notice to Appears to less than half of all apprehended UACs, allowing the rest to move undetected throughout the U.S., but Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies at the Center for Immigration Studies, says the data doesn't say whether the discrepancy is deliberate or just incompetence.
"I think it’s really willful negligence on the part of DHS leadership to allow this already dysfunctional system to become even more overwhelmed,” Vaughan told NRO. “It’s just like deliberate chaos.”
Immigration courts have only closed 9,630 cases in FY2014 even though more than 57,000 UACs had been apprehended through June and more than 20,000 had been transferred to the Department of Justice.
For more information, see National Review Online.
