More than 117,000 immigrants face possible deportation after the Trump administration moved to reopen immigration cases that judges had previously paused, according to an NBC News analysis.
At least half of those affected have lived in the United States for 10 years or longer, raising concerns among immigration advocates and attorneys about disruption to families and communities.
The effort focused on reopening, or “re-calendaring,” cases that immigration judges had administratively closed. Administrative closure has long been used to manage court backlogs by temporarily removing cases from judges’ calendars without dismissing them outright.
These cases typically involved immigrants considered low priorities for deportation, often because they had no serious criminal records, posed no public safety threat, or had strong family and community ties in the U.S.
Most of the administration’s requests to reopen cases were filed in Arizona, California, Florida and New York. California saw the largest increase: more than 30,000 cases were moved to be re-calendared between January and October, representing a 14,000% rise compared with the same period during the final year of the Biden administration.
Former immigration judge Carmen Maria Rey Caldas told NBC News that administrative closure allowed judges to give immigrants time to pursue legal relief, such as asylum or green cards, through lengthy processes.
“These are cases that were effectively tabled because for one reason or another they weren’t appropriate to proceed,” she said.
The Trump administration, however, argued that administrative closure had been misused. In an April memo, officials said it had become a policy tool for administrations opposed to strict immigration enforcement and that it worsened backlogs by delaying final decisions.
The Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review said the practice created what it called an unlawful form of amnesty by allowing immigrants to remain in the country indefinitely without resolving their legal status.
The wave of recalendaring requests has created confusion for lawyers and courts. Attorneys told NBC News they were scrambling to locate clients they had not heard from in years, including some who had moved, died or left the country.
In some cases, notices to reopen reportedly contained errors or appeared not to have been individually reviewed, including cases where immigrants had already legalized their status through other means.
The Office for Immigration Review said judges were not ordered to grant government requests and remain independent decision-makers. The Department of Homeland Security said the administration is enforcing the law while ensuring cases are heard by judges, even as critics warn the policy could upend lives long settled in the United States.
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Courtesy of NBC