The numbers do not lie, and for Americans who have watched decades of immigration enforcement get buried under bureaucratic quicksand, the latest data from the Justice Department immigration courts offers a rare glimpse of government actually working. According to figures from the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University, immigration judges ordered the removal of 79,000 migrants in June 2026, a stunning threefold increase from the roughly 25,000 deportation orders issued in December 2024 during the final gasps of the Biden administration open-border experiment.
Andrew Arthur, a former immigration court judge now with the Center for Immigration Studies, did not mince words about the transformation he is witnessing. “They are plowing through these cases like a freaking snowplow in Utah snow,” Arthur said. “They have dropped the backlog from nearly 4 million down to less than 3.5 million.” For context, that backlog represents millions of individuals who entered the country illegally or overstayed visas, many disappearing into the interior while their cases languished in a system designed more for delay than resolution.
The acceleration is not just about speed—it is about outcomes that actually serve American interests. Under Biden, roughly 25 percent of immigration court cases resulted in migrants receiving some form of legal status. Under Trump revamped system, that figure has collapsed to just 1.9 percent. The asylum approval rate has similarly plummeted from a high of 50 percent under Biden to just 5.5 percent in June 2026. What changed? Trump appointed new judges, cleared procedural roadblocks, and stopped treating immigration court like a rubber stamp for amnesty applications filed by activist lawyers gaming the system.
The real-world impact is already rippling through American communities. When the administration terminated Temporary Protected Status for 350,000 Haitians, the predictable chorus of corporate lobbyists and open-border advocates warned of economic catastrophe. Instead, something remarkable happened: American employers were forced to hire sidelined American workers and pay them higher wages. Hebrew SeniorLife in Massachusetts has filled 75 percent of positions vacated by Haitian workers, opening a training institute that will graduate 110 certified nursing assistants in its first year. A Staten Island facility raised its sign-on bonus from $2,000 to $6,000 to attract workers. Sinai Residences in Florida implemented multiple wage increases to fill positions previously staffed by TPS holders.
Is it not fascinating how the law of supply and demand works when you actually enforce immigration laws? When employers can no longer rely on an endless pipeline of cheap foreign labor, they rediscover the American workers they have been ignoring for years. The data shows deportation orders have tripled for Romanians and doubled for Haitians, Turks, Georgians, and Chileans. Even Chinese nationals have seen a 51 percent increase in removal orders, though Indian nationals—despite comprising one of the largest illegal populations—have seen only modest increases, suggesting enforcement priorities may need recalibration.
James Percival, General Counsel at the Department of Homeland Security, identified the real obstacle to lasting reform: a judicial system weaponized by activist groups. “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. The strategy is transparent—file lawsuits in friendly jurisdictions, secure nationwide injunctions from single judges, and hope the administration term expires before the Supreme Court can restore constitutional order. But with deportation orders now flowing at triple the previous rate, the sand may be running out on the open-border lobby first.
Providence watches over the bold.
About The Author
