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NY1 investigation found 132 noncitizens deported before immigration judges issued required final removal orders

On April 21, 2026, the New York news channel NY1 published an investigation finding 132 cases in which noncitizens were physically deported and received a final removal order from an immigration judge only afterward — the reverse of the legally required sequence. Immigration attorneys in New York, Louisiana, Texas, and Illinois and a former Justice Department chief immigration judge told NY1 the practice was illegal. The report documented Mario Mata Cruz, a Salvadoran man with Special Immigrant Juvenile status and a pending green card, whom ICE arrested on Long Island and deported to El Salvador without a final removal order.

Jurisdiction
Federal
Location
New York, New York

Abuses documented

Actors

On April 21, 2026, the New York news channel NY1 published an investigation reporting that noncitizens were being deported before immigration judges issued the final removal orders that federal law requires to authorize a deportation. Reviewing hundreds of thousands of lines of federal data on ICE arrests since the start of the second Trump administration, NY1 identified 132 cases in which people were physically removed from the United States and received a final removal order from an immigration judge only after they were already gone — the reverse of the legally required sequence. Immigration attorneys in New York, Louisiana, Texas, and Illinois, along with a former U.S. Department of Justice official, described the practice as illegal.

The report documented the case of Mario Mata Cruz, who crossed the southern border alone from El Salvador in 2018 at age 17 and the following year obtained Special Immigrant Juvenile status, a protection for minors found by a court to have suffered abuse, abandonment, or neglect. Mata Cruz had a pending green card application and no criminal record, according to his lawyer, Ed Cuccia. ICE agents arrested him on Long Island as he and his brother drove to work, moved him to a detention facility in Texas, and then flew him to El Salvador. Cuccia said Mata Cruz had no final removal order and had signed no voluntary-departure paperwork when he was deported, calling the removal "as illegal as you can get."

Sheila McNulty, who served as the Justice Department's chief immigration judge before the administration terminated her, told NY1 that deporting people without final removal orders was "contrary to the law." NY1 based its count on data published by the Deportation Data Project, a nonprofit that obtains federal immigration-enforcement records through public-records litigation. The Justice Department did not respond to NY1's questions about Mata Cruz's case, and the Executive Office for Immigration Review said it does not comment on third-party reporting of its data.

Why we recorded this

Due process in immigration enforcement requires the government to complete removal proceedings — including a final order from an immigration judge — before it deports a noncitizen. NY1's analysis of federal data identified 132 cases in which people were physically removed first and issued their final removal orders only afterward, inverting the sequence the law requires, including a man sent to El Salvador despite a pending green card and no criminal record. This archive records when the government carries out deportations outside the adjudication that is meant to authorize them.

Sources

  1. Lawyers across country say noncitizens are being illegally deported — NY1 primary accessed July 16, 2026
  2. Abused and neglected youths granted immigration protections are being detained and deported — NBC News investigative accessed July 16, 2026
  3. Deportation Data Project — Deportation Data Project primary accessed July 16, 2026

See also