Ximena Bastillo

The decision comes from the Board of Immigration Appeals, which is an administrative court that hears appeals from immigration courts.

Both are part of the Justice Department.

This case centers on a DACA recipient who was detained by Customs and Border Protection while boarding a domestic flight last summer.

She was later released from immigration detention in October, and a federal immigration judge said that her DACA status protected her from deportation.

The Department of Homeland Security has appealed.

It argues that DACA protections are not absolute and are subject to discretion.

Ximena Bustillo, Empire News.

Good morning.

Well, let's say you're in the country illegally.

You may get a notice to appear in an immigration court with a specific place and a specific time.

So basically, that's your chance to make your case as to why you should stay.

That notice is not a deportation order.

But if you don't show up, the government may have the right to order your deportation, and that's called an in absentia removal.

We found that in nearly every immigration court in the country, more people are getting these orders, saying they basically didn't show.

That's early analysis unique to NPR that relied on data from January through November.

It's more than 50,000 people in that time, nearly three times the number from the last fiscal year.

And it's a big jump from trends of prior years.

The spike is really noticeable starting in summer around June, and that lines up with anecdotal observations I've been hearing.

That's around the time when Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers began making arrests in immigration courts.

Here's Ruby Powers, an immigration attorney in Texas, talking about these arrests.