The latest available data from the Justice Department show that during the first six months of FY 2013 the government reported 50,468 new immigration prosecutions. If this activity continues at the same pace, the annual total of prosecutions will be 100,936 for this fiscal year. According to the case-by-case information analyzed by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), this estimate is up 9.8% over the past fiscal year when the number of prosecutions totaled 91,941.
The comparisons of the number of defendants charged with immigration-related offenses are based on case-by-case information obtained by TRAC under the Freedom of Information Act from the Executive Office for United States Attorneys (see Table 1).
Compared to five years ago when there were 79,431, the estimate of FY 2013 prosecutions of this type is up 27.1 percent. Prosecutions over the past year are much higher than they were ten years ago. Overall, the data show that prosecutions of this type are up 385 percent from the level of 20,833 reported in 2003 and up 1,475 percent from the level of 6,408 reported in 1993.
The long term trend in immigration prosecutions going back to FY 1993 is shown more clearly in Figure 1. The vertical bars in Figure 1 represent the number of immigration prosecutions recorded each fiscal year. Projected figures for the current fiscal year are shown. Each presidential administration is distinguished by the color of the bars.
