PHOENIX — More than 82 percent of non-citizens have reportedly been allowed to remain in the United States by a federal immigration court in Phoenix this year.

Fox News, citing a report from the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a Syracuse University-based nonprofit, said the Phoenix court has allowed 82.2 percent of non-citizens to stay in the country.

"In more than four out of every five, or 82.2 percent of its 3,554 cases closed so far in 2016, the individuals were successful in their quest to remain in the U.S," TRAC reported.

That percentage is the highest in the nation.

The report said that non-citizens are permitted to stay in the country for a number of reasons.

"… the judge can find that the government did not meet its burden to show the individual was deportable," the report stated. "Or, the judge may have found that the individual was entitled to asylum in this country, or may grant relief from removal under other provisions of the law. "A person also may be allowed to remain because the government requests that the case be administratively closed through the exercise of ICE's prosecutorial discretion, or for some other reason," the report also stated.

Of those allowed to remain in the country by courts nationwide, about one-quarter were from Mexico. Another 44 percent were from either El Salvador, Guatemala or Honduras.

Kathryn Mattingly, a spokesperson for the Department of Justice's Executive Office for Immigration Review, said the immigration court system does not comment on third-party research. However, she said judges granted about 48 percent of asylum applications in fiscal year 2015.

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