Federal immigration judges issued 79,000 deportation orders in June, more than three times the December 2024 total, as the administration accelerated case processing and reduced the court backlog by hundreds of thousands.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
Federal immigration courts sharply increased the pace of deportation orders during the first half of 2026, giving the Trump administration a larger pool of migrants who can be arrested and removed with relatively few remaining legal options.
Immigration judges ordered 79,000 removals in June, compared with approximately 25,000 in December 2024, according to data cited in a Breitbart News report. The increase followed changes to court procedures, the appointment of additional judges and the removal of policies that had delayed or restricted deportation proceedings during former President Joe Biden’s administration.
Andrew Arthur, a former immigration judge who now works for the Center for Immigration Studies, said the courts are resolving cases at an unusually rapid pace.
“They are plowing through these cases like a freaking snowplow in Utah snow,” Arthur said. “They’ve dropped the backlog from nearly 4 million down to less than 3.5 million.”
The Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse reported a backlog of approximately 3.2 million migrants after the surge in illegal immigration during the Biden administration. TRAC, which published the June court data, generally supports policies favorable to migrants and expanded immigration.
Migrants who receive final removal orders can often be detained and deported quickly because most avenues for remaining legally in the United States have already been exhausted. Arthur said such orders were frequently disregarded in previous years by both migrants and the agencies responsible for carrying them out.
The June total may not represent the peak of the administration’s court activity. Removal orders were expected to rise further in July and August, potentially enabling immigration authorities to increase deportations through the remainder of 2026 and into early 2027.
Only 1.9% of concluded immigration cases now result in some form of legal status for migrants, compared with about 25% during Biden’s term.
The administration has also tightened asylum adjudications. Immigration judges approved asylum in 5.5% of cases during June 2026, down from a peak of 50% under Biden.
The rise in removal orders followed a broader overhaul of the deportation system. Trump officials eliminated several Biden-era restrictions, appointed new immigration judges and worked through legal challenges filed by immigration advocacy organizations, attorneys and judges.
James Percival, general counsel at the Department of Homeland Security, said opponents are attempting to delay enforcement until Trump leaves office.
“They view the Trump administration as a four year hour glass, and they see the sand falling, and they know if they can just get enough crazy district judges to do enough crazy things, they can run out the clock,” Percival said. “That’s the strategy.”
The June figures show that removal orders increased most sharply in states where local and state policies have traditionally limited cooperation with federal immigration authorities. Judges substantially expanded deportation decisions involving migrants in Illinois, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and New Jersey.
Arrests declined modestly in California and Washington state, according to the data.
The increase also varied considerably by nationality. Deportation orders involving Romanian migrants tripled, while orders for Haitians, Turks, Georgians and Chileans doubled.
Removal orders for Chinese nationals rose 51%. The number involving Indian nationals changed little despite the large population of illegal immigrants from India.
The administration’s enforcement policies are also affecting industries that had relied heavily on migrant labor. The termination of Temporary Protected Status for approximately 350,000 Haitians has required some employers to recruit more American workers, increase compensation and expand training programs.
The Boston Globe reported July 28 that elder-care businesses were trying to fill positions being vacated by Haitian employees losing their authorization to work in the United States.
Hebrew SeniorLife CEO Adam Scott said the company had been preparing for the change for months and had filled 75% of the positions previously held by Haitian workers.
“Hebrew SeniorLife has been preparing for this moment for months, said CEO Adam Scott, and has managed to hire enough workers to fill 75 percent of the positions the Haitian workers are leaving behind. Last fall, the provider opened a training institute for certified nursing assistants and will have trained 110 students by the end of the first year of operations.”
The company’s training program is part of a wider effort by elder-care providers to develop a domestic workforce. Hebrew SeniorLife has also continued to recruit patient-care employees.
A July 26 McKnight Senior Living report said companies were increasing wages and benefits while retraining people from other industries.
Elder-care “providers are taking steps to lessen the [workforce impact], including increasing wages and benefits packages to attract more workers, as well as training workers from other fields so they can join the senior living workforce,” the report said.
One Staten Island facility increased its hiring bonus from $2,000 to $6,000, according to a July 31 Washington Post report.
“We’ve made multiple wage increases to all of our positions, but particularly the positions that are affected by TPS,” Rachel Blumberg, CEO of Sinai Residences in Florida, told Marketplace Business News in January.
Administration supporters argue that reducing the supply of migrant labor forces employers to compete for sidelined American workers by raising wages, improving benefits and investing in occupational training.
They also contend that migrants returning to their countries of origin could contribute to economic development and political reform abroad, including in countries such as Cuba and Nicaragua.
The administration’s expanding inventory of final deportation orders is expected to make removals easier because those migrants have already received court decisions directing them to leave the country.
With court approvals for asylum and other legal protections falling sharply, the immigration judiciary has become a central part of Trump’s effort to increase deportations and reduce the backlog accumulated during the Biden-era migration surge.
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