From the Daily Caller News Foundation 

By Jason Hopkins

Nearly 1 million illegal migrants in the United States have benefited from “quiet amnesty” by the Biden-Harris immigration court system, according to a report released Thursday.

Over 700,000 illegal migrants have had their cases administratively closed, terminated or dismissed, allowing them to remain in the country “indefinitely” without being subject to immigration consequences, according to a report released by the House Judiciary Committee, led by Ohio GOP Rep. Jim Jordan. The findings, which the committee dubbed as “quiet amnesty,” come amid record levels of illegal immigration into the country under the current administration.

“Through administrative maneuvering at both the Justice Department and [the Department of Homeland Security], the Biden-Harris Administration has already ensured that nearly 1 million illegal aliens can remain in the United States without the possibility of deportation—and that trend shows no sign of stopping,” the report went on.

When a non-citizen enters the U.S. unlawfully, they can be placed into removal proceedings and eventually go before one of the roughly 700 immigration judges across the country.

Due to the unprecedented border crisis and wave of foreign nationals applying for asylum, the immigration court system has faced a massive backlog, the report detailed. The backlog grew from 1.2 million cases at the end of the Trump administration to nearly 3.5 million cases by the end of the third quarter of fiscal year 2024 — marking a 175% increase.

The Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) additionally reported nearly 109,100 cases as “not adjudicated” in fiscal year 2023, meaning that the cases were completed but not adjudicated on the merits of the claims, according to the House report. There were 109,568 asylum cases not adjudicated in just the first nine months of fiscal year 2024, already surpassing the total previous fiscal year.

For comparison, there were just 12,960 total asylum cases reported as “not adjudicated” from fiscal years 2017 to 2020 — combined, according to the House report.

The Biden-Harris administration additionally failed to file the required documentation to begin immigration court removal proceedings for around 200,00 cases, resulting in the “overwhelming majority” of those non-citizens being able to remain in the country indefinitely, the report found.

“Instead of actually adjudicating illegal aliens’ cases based on the merits of aliens’ claims for relief — such as whether an alien has a valid and successful asylum claim — immigration judges under the Biden-Harris Administration have been tasked with rubberstamping case dismissals, case closures, and case terminations, all of which allow illegal aliens to remain in the United States without immigration consequences,” the report stated.

The Department of Justice, which oversees EOIR, declined to comment for this story.

From The Center for Immigration Studies

By Todd Bensman

TAPACHULA, Mexico — This town near the border of Guatemala holds a migrant time bomb ready to go off just after the US presidential election.

The fuse was lit in December 2023, when the Joe Biden-Kamala Harris administration sent senior lieutenants to Mexico to work out the details of what remains a highly mysterious grand diplomatic bargain.

Worried about what the optics of the southern border would do to their re-election chances — though not the migrant crisis itself — the White House wanted to stop the pictures of crowds of people gathered at the wall.

The deal was to have Mexico deploy 32,500 troops to the US border to round up untold thousands of intending border crossers from the northern precincts and force-ship them — “internal deportation” by planes and buses — thousands of miles to Mexico’s southern provinces and entrap them in cities like Tapachula in Chiapas state behind militarized roadblocks.

Mexico closed off most of its freight trains to migrant free riders, bulldozed northern camps, and patrolled relentlessly for more deportee targets.

Meanwhile, the administration increased “parole” programs that flew migrants directly from countries like Venezuela, thus avoiding the border entirely.

The effect was immediate. Illegal border crossings plummeted from an embarrassing, record-breaking 12,000 to 14,000 per day in November and December 2023 to about 3,000 or 4,000 per day before January was even over.

But the crisis isn’t over.

The just-released 2025 Homeland Threat Assessment from the Department of Homeland Security says the decrease in illegal border crossing is largely due to “increased Mexican enforcement efforts.”

What happens if that enforcement stops?

Tapachula is bursting at the seams.

No one really knows how many people are stacked up, but local shelter managers reported to me that they had filled up long ago.

The publisher of Noticia De Tapachula, the daily newspaper, told me 150,000 immigrants were in town at any given time, a 42% increase in the city’s normal population of 350,000. Untold thousands more are stacked up in Villahermosa, a city of 830,000.

Mexico’s response has been to try to spread the immigrants around the southern portion of the country.

I spent time at two different roadside areas where federal immigration officers would call out names from the crowd, who would board buses that delivered them to other regional cities in Chiapas — but NOT beyond them and certainly never beyond Mexico City.

Mexico is still trying to hold up its end of the bargain, at least until November 5, even though more migrants are starting to slip through and making it over the Texas or California borders.

The question is what happens after the American election.

No matter who wins, Mexico might well consider that it more than satisfied its obligation to the current White House occupant and open the floodgates.

If it’s Donald Trump, Americans should expect a massive tidal wave of caravans for the 10 weeks before Inauguration Day. All the migrants I’ve spoken to say they fear a Trump presidency, and will rush to the border in a last-ditch attempt.

If it’s Harris, perhaps the massive tidal wave will go on for the next four years, much like the last four.

Todd Bensman, a senior national security fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies, is the author of “Overrun: How Joe Biden Unleashed the Greatest Border Crisis in U.S. History.”