An estimated 42,726 immigration court hearings have been canceled as a result of the partial government shutdown, which has lasted for more than three weeks, according to a new report.
Syracuse University's Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, an institution that tracks immigration data, in a report released on Monday found that cancelled hearings will likely
grow by around 20,000 during each week that the shutdown continues.
Many
immigration courts are are closed due to the ongoing shutdown, and immigration judges are only hearing cases of detained immigrants.
"We do think every day cases are being canceled," Judge Ashley Tabaddor, the president of the National Association of Immigration Judges, told CNN.
"We're looking at several thousand a day ... [the Clearinghouse data is] consistent with our estimates. I don't know the exact number but it's definitely in the ballpark."
CNN was not able to independently verify the estimate.
The report's estimate is based upon an analysis of court records.
"Since few cases are being resolved during the shutdown, each week the shutdown continues the practical effect is to
add thousands of cases back onto the active case backlog which had already topped eight-hundred thousand (809,041) as of the end of last September," the report states.
Immigration courts in California have reportedly seen the highest rate of cancellations, followed by New York and Texas.
The shutdown is almost certain to worsen the already-hefty immigration court backlog, according to CNN.
The government shutdown became the longest in U.S. history over the weekend and hit its 24th day on Monday.
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