delete_action deletes nodes but leaves orphaned CCK fields in the database

I am using the delete_action (Delete Node action) to delete multiple nodes using Views Bulk Operations. When I use this action, the node itself is deleted from the database, but the node's CCK field is still present in the database. In other words, there is an orphaned record for the CCK field in the database table whose name begins with content_type_.

If I delete each node individually, either by visiting /node/12345/delete or by clicking on the Delete button on the node edit form, the CCK field is deleted successfully from the database.

The reason I noticed this is that we have an external script that queries the CCK table directly, so when users delete the nodes, our script still sees the orphaned fields in the database and references them even though they were supposed to be deleted.

Could someone help me troubleshoot this issue? Thanks so much in advance!