The Department of Justice's Office of Inspector General has issued a report noting that most aliens facing removal orders from the US are not ultimately removed by the INS when they are not detained. Only 13% of immigrants ordered removed who are not detained by the INS actually leave, according to the OIG. But when the INS actually detained a person, the rate of actual removal jumps to 92%. According to the report, immigrants ordered removed

• from countries that the U.S. Department of State identified as sponsors of terrorism – only 6 percent of those ordered removed were actually removed,

• with criminal records – only 35 percent of those ordered removed were actually removed, and

• who were denied asylum – only 3 percent of those ordered removed actually left.

The OIG was especially blunt in criticizing the INS for not following recommendations from an earlier report that were intended to address this problem. 

For example, the INS agreed to improve its methods of notifying aliens of their duty to surrender for removal. The INS published a proposed rule, but allowed it to lapse. After September 11th attacks, the INS revived the rule. As of last month, the rule was still not finalized.

According to the OIG, the INS agreed to conduct field tests to target for removal all aliens with final orders. They told the OIG that a pilot project in Philadelphia had gone well. However, the INS was not able to provide any information regarding the pilot project in Philadelphia or other  locations and they could not locate anyone who could remember the projects.

The INS contracted with the Vera Institute of Justice to conduct a demonstration project to examine whether a supervised release program could improve court appearance rates for asylum seekers, criminal aliens, and undocumented workers. The final project report was issued on August 1, 2000, but as of December 2002, the

INS had not acted on it or implemented any alternative actions to improve the removal rates for nondetained aliens.

And finally, according to the report, the INS agreed to use an FY 1996 budget enhancement of $11.2 million to fund 142 positions to remove alien absconders. It also agreed to use the INS’s Law Enforcement Support Center to enter alien absconder information into the National Crime Information Center (NCIC) and develop an automated list of criminal absconders for the law enforcement community. However, the INS did not establish absconder removal teams or develop an automated list of absconders until after September 11, 2001. Moreover, the INS was unable to document how it used the $11.2 million.

The report can be found online at http://www.usdoj.gov/oig/inspection/I-2003-004/final.pdf