Houston Chronicle
Immigration cases being tossed by the hundreds

Immigration cases being tossed by the hundreds
Docket review pulls curtain back on procedure by Homeland Security
By SUSAN CARROLL

Oct. 17, 2010

In the month after Homeland Security officials started a review of Houston’s immigration court docket, immigration judges dismissed more than 200 cases, an increase of more than 700 percent from the prior month, new data shows.

The number of dismissals in Houston courts reached 217 in August — up from just 27 in July, according to data from the Executive Office for Immigration Review, which administers the nation’s immigration court system.

In September, judges dismissed 174 pending cases — the vast majority involving immigrants who already were out on bond and had cases pending on Houston’s crowded downtown court docket, where hearings are now being scheduled into 2012.

Roughly 45 percent of the 350 cases decided in that court in September resulted in dismissals, the records show.

The EOIR data offer the first glimpse into Homeland Security’s largely secretive review of pending cases on the local immigration court docket.

In early August, federal attorneys in Houston started filing unsolicited motions to dismiss cases involving suspected illegal immigrants who have lived in the country for years without committing serious crimes.

News of the dismissals, first reported in the Houston Chronicle in late August, caused a national controversy amid allegations that the Obama administration was implementing a kind of “backdoor amnesty” — a charge officials strongly denied.

In recent weeks, some immigration attorneys reported the dismissals have slowed somewhat, while others reported they now have to ask ICE trial attorneys to exercise prosecutorial discretion in order to have their cases dismissed. Others, however, said they are still being approached by government attorneys seeking to file joint motions for case dismissal.

“They’re still doing it,” said immigration attorney Steve Villarreal. “They’re just doing it quietly.”

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials declined this week to discuss specifics of the docket reviews and dismissals, which are also going on in several other cities, including Dallas and Miami…

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