(CNN) More than 40,000 immigration hearings have been canceled because of the partial government shutdown, according to a report released Monday.

Syracuse University's Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, which tracks immigration court data, released a report showing that an estimated 42,726 immigration court hearings had been canceled as a result of the shutdown. The estimate is based on the number of hearings that were scheduled, dating to November 30.

It's not an official statistic. But the report is the first detailed analysis that reveals the potential implications of the shutdown for an immigration court system that's already facing a crushing backlog.

Susan Long, a co-director of the clearinghouse, said researchers had arrived at the estimate by tallying scheduled cases recorded in official government data obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests.

CNN couldn't independently confirm the estimate. Officials from the Executive Office for Immigration Review, the branch of the Justice Department that runs US immigration courts, could not be immediately reached for comment. Many judges and office employees have been furloughed as a result of the partial government shutdown.

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