Deportation Numbers Will Rise Only After Congress Fixes Asylum Court Capacity

Why did border encounters drop while enforcement debates heated up?

Department of Homeland Security data released on June 5, 2026, showed total encounters along the southwest border fell to 42,000 in May, down from 67,000 in January. The decline follows the administration's revival of the Remain in Mexico policy, expanded use of expedited removal, and a March 2026 agreement with Mexico to accept non-Mexican nationals at seven border sectors. A Customs and Border Protection official, speaking on background, told The Alamo Post that detention capacity at the border is now at 94%, leaving little room for new arrivals.

But lower encounters do not mean the problem is solved. The immigration court backlog reached 3.4 million cases as of May 31, 2026, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University. The average wait for an asylum hearing is now 1,772 days. That is nearly five years. During that time, applicants cannot legally work for the first 180 days, and many work anyway. Employers hire them because E-Verify remains voluntary in most states and because penalties for hiring unauthorized workers are rare.

The labor market data exposes the contradiction. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on June 6, 2026, that Hispanic unemployment stood at 5.1% in May, while construction added only 12,000 jobs and agriculture shed 8,000. A Labor Department official said those numbers are consistent with a tighter supply of workers in industries that rely heavily on immigrant labor. The border is quieter. The economy is feeling it anyway.

How does enforcement without reform punish Hispanic families?

Mixed-status households bear the heaviest cost of enforcement, because 4.9 million U.S. citizen children live with at least one unauthorized immigrant parent and workplace raids often push those children into foster care or relative care while their parents wait years for overloaded immigration courts to act. The Pew Research Center published that estimate in 2024, and the numbers have not moved much since. When ICE conducts workplace raids or targets individuals with removal orders, those children often end up in state foster care or rely on relatives already stretched thin. A Department of Health and Human Services report from April 2026 found that emergency shelter placements for minors in border states rose 18% in the first four months of the year. The trauma is real. The taxpayer bill is real too.

Hispanic American workers pay a second price. When employers fear raids, they shift to subcontracting and cash payments. A study by the Center for Immigration Studies, which favors lower immigration, noted in February 2026 that wages in residential construction in Texas and Florida rose 6.2% year over year, partly because contractors could no longer rely on a stable workforce. That sounds like good news until you see that Hispanic framers, roofers, and drywall crews lost overtime hours and saw project delays eat into their earnings. Enforcement creates winners and losers inside the same community.

And the political bargain is shaky. Polling by NBC News and Telemundo in May 2026 found that 54% of Hispanic voters support stronger border security, but only 31% support mass deportation of long-settled families. The gap matters. Conservatives can win Hispanic votes on order and safety. They will lose them if families are torn apart at factories and churches in cities where these voters live.

What would enforcement that respects both law and workers look like?

First, Congress should fund immigration judges at the same scale as detention beds, because adding 300 judges could cut the asylum backlog from 1,772 days to under 400 days and swift consequences deter illegal entry better than years of limbo. The Executive Office for Immigration Review has 835 judges nationwide. That is fewer judges than the city of Los Angeles has police officers. If Congress added those 300 judges and support staff over two years, the system could begin to function. Fast decisions mean rejected claims are removed quickly and valid claims are resolved without years of uncertainty.

Second, mandate E-Verify nationwide and pair it with civil penalties that bite. The current system lets employers claim they accepted fake documents in good faith. A Heritage Foundation analysis from January 2026 estimated that universal E-Verify with meaningful fines would reduce the unauthorized workforce by 1.2 million over three years. That reduction should come through attrition, not midnight raids. Workers who self-deport because they cannot get hired do not leave citizen children in foster care.

Third, create a narrow legalization path for long-settled undocumented immigrants with no criminal record beyond the immigration violation itself. This is not amnesty. It is realism. The Migration Policy Institute estimates that 5.1 million undocumented immigrants have lived in the United States for more than a decade. They are not going back to countries they left as toddlers. A conditional status that requires English proficiency, steady employment, and payment of back taxes respects the rule of law without pretending that deportation is logistically possible.

Conservatives should want a system that enforces the law and keeps Hispanic families working. The June jobs numbers show we are halfway there on enforcement. The other half is a Congress willing to fix the courts, verify the workplace, and recognize that 11.7 million undocumented immigrants do not disappear because a policy memo says so. Build the legal framework first. Then turn the key.