The government of Donald Trump has transformed the immigration judicial system in the United States in 2026, overcrowding immigration courtrooms and drastically reducing notice times for hearings.
The result: deportation orders nearly doubled between January 2025 and June 2026, rising from approximately 33,000 to nearly 79,000 monthly, according to data from Mobile Pathways cited by AP.
Massive hearings with minimal notice
The central mechanism of this acceleration is the mass hearings of the master calendar, where a single judge can have hundreds of cases scheduled in one day.
In June 2026, more than 1,300 of these sessions were held, nearly triple the number recorded in the same month the previous year.
The notice period to appear before a court decreased from a median of 158 days in April to just 42 days in June, making it practically impossible to obtain legal representation.
The direct consequence was the issuance of 20,763 orders of deportation in absentia in a single month, in hearings with less than 45 days' notice.
In Dallas, the rate of orders issued in absentia reached 29.3% in May 2026, compared to a national average of 12.3%, according to Mobile Pathways.
In some contexts, the absence rate doubled to 40%.
The purge of the judiciary body
In parallel, the administration restructured the immigration judicial body. Since January 2025, the government has dismissed more than 113 immigration judges, according to the National Association of Immigration Judges, as reported by Reuters.
The backlog in the courts approached 4 million cases in February 2026, with only about 520 active judges.
The new judges appointed by Trump have a radically different profile: they approve asylum requests in only 6% of cases, compared to 46% of the judges who were removed.
The immigration attorney from Florida Willy Allen III summarized it in May 2026: "There are 120 new judges trained in three to four weeks to deny cases."
The impact on Cubans
The Cuban community is among the most affected. Between October 2025 and June 2026, 4,007 Cubans received deportation orders in Florida, according to data from TRAC at Syracuse University.
Only in June 2026, the courts issued 1,642 deportation orders against Cubans nationwide.
More than 42,000 Cubans had pending final deportation orders according to data from the Department of Homeland Security as of November 2025.
In parallel, ICE processed nearly 6,000 people in detention facilities in the Miami area alone in July 2026, accumulating over 41,000 detentions since January 2025, more than any other ICE office in the country.
An alternative: Voluntary departure
In response to judicial pressure, the Trump administration promoted the Homecoming Project for voluntary departures, which by July 28, had exceeded 200,000 departures, with an incentive of $2,600 per person.
The contrast with the cost of forced deportation is striking: while a voluntary departure costs the government about 2,500 dollars, a forced deportation amounts to 18,245 dollars.
For those who already have a ruling, immigration lawyers warn that there are still legal avenues available: appealing can provide a second chance for those who qualify.
With almost 4 million accumulated cases and an asylum approval rate reduced to 6%, the chances of obtaining legal protection have drastically decreased for millions of immigrants, including tens of thousands of Cubans.
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