A new study says Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) wastes resources by targeting the wrong people for deportation. The study shows immigration judges are rejecting an increasing number if ICE's deportation requests.
The study, by a clearinghouse called TRAC, at Syracuse University, says immigration judges turned down one in three of ICE's deportation requests during a three month period this year.
That's up from one in four compared to the same period the previous year, according to the study.
Susan Long, co-director or TRAC, said the increase shows ICE is inefficient. "It says it isn't doing a good job of targeting people that need to be deported. And that's terribly wasteful of government resources."
Long said it's also problematic for the people who go through deportation cases only to be released.
"And from the perspective of the individuals that were wrongly selected, it's just imposing huge personal and financial burdens," said Long.
The study says ICE wrongly targeted more than 300,000 out of 1.2 million in the last five years.
Judges in San Diego rejected 1,400 of ICE's deportation requests --640 were thrown out in Phoenix and 830 in El Paso.
