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Immigration Court Legal Representation Dashboard

As policy changes and global events constantly shift the immigration landscape, this tool—updated monthly—provides the most recent statistics on cases before U.S. immigration courts and the state of legal representation among people facing deportation.

The U.S. immigration court system, run by the U.S. Department of Justice’s Executive Office of Immigration Review (EOIR), has a mission to “adjudicate immigration cases by fairly, expeditiously, and uniformly interpreting and administering” the law.1 However, the U.S. immigration system is outdated, and systemic failures have led to a large backlog of cases waiting to be adjudicated. As of , there was a backlog of deportation cases pending in immigration court in the United States. This represents a percent from the year prior.

The consequences of losing a deportation case can be devastating. Deportation can tear families and communities apart, and many people are sent back to places where their safety or livelihoods may be at risk. However, while the federal government provides lawyers for people who cannot afford one in criminal court, it does not do the same for people in immigration court. People deserve to be treated with fairness and due process, but right now, many people facing deportation are forced to navigate the complex U.S. immigration system alone against highly trained government lawyers, without anyone to explain their rights or to defend them. Across the United States, 67 percent of people facing deportation in immigration court across the United States lack legal counsel. For people in immigration detention facing deportation, securing legal representation can be even more challenging.

The table below includes national- and state-level data on people in deportation proceedings and the number and percentage who are unrepresented. States with at least one immigration court are included in the table. The data is available for all people facing deportation, as well as for only people in immigration detention. The last column of the table allows users to see how these counts have changed over the past month or year.

1Executive Office of Immigration Review (EOIR), “About the Office,”
https://www.justice.gov/eoir/about-office.

Use the green drop-down menus to customize the table.
  1. Month and year: The data will be updated to the selected end date.
  2. What you want to measure:
    • Pending cases: This counts cases that have not received an initial case decision (or “immigration judge disposition”) as of the selected month and year.
    • Cases in the past five years: This counts all cases—both pending and closed—that have started in the past five years prior to selected month and year.
    • All cases since FY2001: This counts all cases for which data is available from Fiscal Year 2001 to selected month and year.
  3. What you want to measure change over time in: In the last column, choose one of the previous columns in which to measure change over time.
  4. The time period over which you want to measure change:
    • Last month: the month preceding the selected date to the selected date.
    • Last year: the year preceding the selected date to the selected date.

See About the Data for more details on the dataset. For more information on the landscape of deportation defense and local and state deportation defense programs visit The Movement for Deportation Defense: Information Hub. For any questions or comments on this dashboard please contact nagarwal@vera.org

Number and Share of People Facing Deportation and the Status of Legal Representation

Data through:
All People
Detained People
% Change Over
#
State
Total
Unrepresented
Percentage Unrepresented
Total
Unrepresented
Percentage Unrepresented

10 Things We Know from U.S. Immigration Court Data
January 2025

  1. At the end of 2024, U.S. immigration courts had 3.7 million pending deportation cases. This represents a 14 percent increase from the year prior. Among pending cases, people in 2.5 million cases (67 percent) were navigating their deportation proceedings alone with no lawyer to defend them.
  2. Across the United States, 1.3 million new deportation cases began in 2024.
  3. According to EOIR data, at the end of 2024, more than 18,500 people in immigration detention were facing deportation in immigration court.
  4. The majority of people facing deportation in immigration court (60 percent) had no attorney to advise them of their rights, advocate for their release from detention, or help them exercise their rights in their deportation cases.
  5. Of the more than 340,000 people who were ordered removed in immigration court in 2024, 79 percent lacked legal representation.
  6. More than 1 million children were facing deportation in immigration court in 2024. Over 70 percent of these children had no attorney.
  7. Many people who enter the country without inspection have a legal right to remain in the United States. In 2024, 68 percent of people in deportation proceedings were charged with entering the country without inspection. Among people who entered the United States without inspection and had a lawyer to represent them, two in three (65 percent) established their right to remain in the United States.
  8. Among all people in deportation proceedings over the past three years, just 7 percent have received orders of removal in absentia.*
  9. Appearance rates are even higher for people represented by counsel. 97 percent of people in immigration court who had a lawyer continued to appear for their court hearings and just 3 percent received orders of removal in absentia.
  10. People facing deportation in immigration court can be waiting in limbo for a case decision for years. Among cases that closed in the past three years, people waited on average more than three years for their case to reach even an initial decision.

* Updated January 27, 2025: The previous statistic calculated the absentia rate only for people without representation in deportation proceedings. The current statistic calculates the absentia rate for all people in deportation proceedings.

About the Data

  1. There are no immigration courts in the following U.S. states and territories in this dataset: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Delaware, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Mexico, Mississippi, Montana, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, U.S. Virgin Islands, Vermont, Washington DC, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.
  2. The counts in this table are of immigration proceedings. An immigration proceeding is considered to be “Unrepresented” if the data shows there is no EOIR-28 Notice of Entry of Appearance as Attorney or Representative form filing associated with the case. An immigration proceeding is considered to be “Detained” if the individual was in immigration detention at the time of the immigration judge’s initial disposition or remains in immigration detention if the case is still pending. The U.S. state associated with an immigration proceeding is determined by the location of the immigration court where the immigration judge’s initial disposition was issued, or the location of the most recent hearing if the case is still pending.
  3. “Pending Cases” refers to immigration proceedings without an initial disposition by an immigration judge. “Cases Filed in Past 5 Years” refers to immigration proceedings with a Notice to Appear (NTA) filing date within the five years preceding the month and year of the selected dataset. “All Cases Since FY2001” refers to proceedings with a NTA filing date after September 30, 2000.
  4. When calculating change over time for “All Cases Total”, “Detained Cases Total”, “All Cases Unrepresented”, and “Detained Cases Unrepresented”, the percentage change is given. When calculating change over time for “All Cases % Unrepresented” and “Detained Cases % Unrepresented”, the change in percentage points is given. For example, suppose there were 10,000 total proceedings (“All Cases Total”) with 50 percent unrepresented (“All Cases % Unrepresented”) in January, and 11,000 total proceedings with 55 percent unrepresented in February. The "% Change Over Last Month" in total proceedings is (11,000 – 10,000) / 10,000 = 0.10 = +10%. The "Change Over Last Month" in percentage unrepresented is 55% - 50% = 5% = +5 pp.
  5. When comparing states based on percentage changes over time, note that small changes in the number of proceedings can cause large percent changes. It is therefore very important to consider the volume and changes in the volume of the number of cases in an area when contextualizing representation rates. For example, a monthly increase from one proceeding to two proceedings, representing an increase of +100%, might not be as noteworthy as an increase from 20,000 to 30,000 proceedings, representing an increase of +50%.

Data source: Executive Office for Immigration Review, "EOIR Case Data (December 2023)," database (Falls Church, VA: Executive Office for Immigration Review), https://www.justice.gov/eoir/foia-library-0.