The number of pending U.S. immigration cases has reached a historic high amid the current surge in border crossings.
The backlog in U.S. immigration cases shot past 3 million in November, according to data from Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC). That’s up from 2 million cases in November 2022.
The Biden White House accelerated hiring of new judges during its first three years, boosting the current total nationwide to 682, according to TRAC. What’s more, judges are now closing out one-third more cases than they were in 2019.
However, immigration judges are “swamped,” according to TRAC’s latest assessment. On average, each U.S. immigration judge is now overseeing 4,500 cases.
The Trump White House touted its draconian border policies as a means to curb the influx of migrants. Even so, the backlog accelerated during its watch, TRAC noted.
“This is like, you know, a classic, I Love Lucy episode when they’re trying to catch the chocolates. It’s just not gonna happen,” Priscilla Orta, supervising attorney for Brownsville-based Project Corozon, which provides free legal services for asylum seekers, told Border Report of the new TRAC numbers.
The steep backlog means asylum seekers now face an average five-year wait for courts to close out their proceedings, Orta also told Border Report. That’s a 67% increase from the wait time at the beginning of 2022.
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This article appears in Dec 27, 2023 – Jan 9, 2024.
