New York City and Harris County, Texas, lead in number of migrant deportations this year

New York City has seen the most deportations in the U.S. so far this fiscal year, according to a new report by Syracuse University's Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC).

The report obtained country-wide data for all removals for the fiscal year, which started in October 2023, and showed that, overall, more than 600,000 people have been deported, either by immigration judges, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) or Border Patrol.

Just under 11,000 migrants residing in New York City were ordered to leave the U.S. this fiscal year so far. Texas' Harris County, where Houston is located, followed suit in the ranking, with over 8,000 deportations. Los Angeles County, Dallas County and Miami-Dade completed the top five.

Of the remaining five regions mentioned by the report, two are in Texas (Montgomery County and Travis County) and two others in California (San Bernardino County and Orange County), the remaining one being Illinois' Cook County, where Chicago is located. However, all of them have recorded fewer than 2,000 deportations, comparatively low figures.

Overall, the pace of deportations during this fiscal year is 50% higher than the peak reached during the Trump administration in 2019, the report said. At a more granular level, judges ordered 136,623 removals. "The increase in removal orders coincides with the expansion of the ranks of Immigration Judges during the current Administration," the study added. ICE and Border Patrol deported over half a million people combined.

The report also showed that while the pace of removals is increasing, immigrants are increasingly unable to secure representation to help them present their cases.

"Since FY 2021, representation rates have plummeted as removal hearings climbed. Last year, representation rates had fallen to only 20 percent. So far during FY 2024, only 15 percent of immigrants ordered removed had been able to obtain representation to assist them," the study says.

The figure contrasts with 30% of representation for migrants in the Court's backlog, something the report says is not surprising, as "those without attorneys generally have much higher odds of being ordered removed."

However, as the situation as the border continues to be an electoral liability for president Joe Biden, the president is set to publish an updated rule allowing it to reject asylum seekers more quickly, Axios reported on Wednesday.

The rule, the outlet said, would allow immigration officials to bar migrants from asylum within days, even hours, compared to the years it can take at the moment. The rule could target people considered national security risks.