Tracking immigration | Power Line

For those interested in tracking hard data on how the return of Donald Trump has impacted the nation’s illegal immigration, I recommend visiting TRAC, the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse. Formerly hosted by Syracuse University, the site migrated to a new platform. I was unable to find it for a time, but it now seems to be up and running again, and fully functional.

It’s too early to see dramatic changes in the data, as Trump has been in office for only 61 days or so, fewer if you exclude holidays and weekends.

TRAC data are current as of the end of February, so we have even fewer observations to work with. The thing that I’m most interested in is the workings of something called the “Immigration Court.” It’s not a true court in that it’s not within the federal judicial branch. Officially, it’s a unit of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), named the Executive Office for Immigration Review.

You may have seen headlines about the amazing number of cases pending, some 3.7 million, nationwide. That works out to something north of more than 1 percent of the nation’s population is currently in official deportation proceedings. More, in that some cases involve more than a single individual.

Reducing the backlog either has been helped or hurt by the resignation of dozens of DOJ employees not down with the new program in Washington.

The early indications are good, as for perhaps the first time ever, the case backlog has fallen, however slightly, in the first 40 days of Trump 2. The backlog is down about 30,000 or so from last year.

Across America, the nationality most represented in the Immigration Court backlog is Venezuela, just edging out Mexico.

Curious as to how Immigration Court worked, I visited the local Minnesota branch a few times last year, while Pres. Biden was still in office. The court is housed in a nondescript federal office building located near the Minneapolis airport. My eyewitness conclusion was that Immigration Court did not, in fact, work.

These cases are civil, not criminal, proceedings. “Respondents” (immigrants) do not have a right to a free, taxpayer paid attorney. However, they are allowed to hire their own, or frequently, a local nonprofit will provide one (taxpayer paid?), gratis. The government is represented in these proceedings by the Dept. of Homeland Security.

Following the national trend, the backlog at the Minnesota office has dropped slightly in 2025, but still stands above 41,000 cases. I previously calculated that, at the current rate cases were being closed in Minnesota, it would take nearly 18 years to clear the accumulated local backlog, assuming no new cases were added. In other words, some cases active today would still be around on the cusp of the first Barron Trump Administration.

For whatever reason, in the Minnesota court, Ecuador is the most represented nation, with Mexico and Venezuela a distant second and third, respectively.

In the near future, I plan to revisit the court, in person, to see if the productivity and the tone have changed.