Immigration Court Backlog Now Over 3 Million With Waits Up to Four Years

The Syracuse University Transaction Records Access Clearinghouse, or TRAC, which compiles immigration data, says that the backlog of cases for the 600 immigration courts in the U.S. jumped from 1.9 million in September 2022 to over 3 million in November 2023.

That's more people than live in Chicago. According to USA Today, wait times for a court date can stretch as long as four years.

"The courts can only do so much when the Biden administration has opened the spigot at the border," said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) during a Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing in October. "Our immigration judges can't do their job, just being flooded with these huge numbers."

Biden has hired an additional 302 immigration judges and is asking for another 150 next year. But with each judge currently responsible for an average of 4,500 cases, the number falls far short of what's actually needed.

The Executive Office of Immigration Review runs the immigration court system. Kathryn Mattingly, press secretary for the office, says that the office is developing new initiatives in an effort to reduce the backlog.

"These efforts include encouraging the use of pre-hearing conferences to resolve matters that do not require valuable court docket time and the creation of specialized dockets to optimally schedule hearings and handle more straightforward matters more quickly," she told USA Today in an email.

These initiatives only affect the numbers on the margins.

Many Republicans and some conservative Democrats argue that many migrants may be making false claims about being persecuted in their homeland on the pretense that they'll get an opportunity to stay in the U.S. for years awaiting court dates that could be years away.

"There are people who literally come to the United States and turn themselves in and claim asylum knowing that they can beat the system, and that, if they are given a notice to appear at all, that it may be for years in the future," Cornyn said in the Senate hearing.

In a review of 25 years of data, TRAC found that immigration judges granted asylum or other immigration relief in 13% of cases.

In other words, the vast majority of asylum claims are bogus.

That doesn't shut the door on the bogus asylum seekers permanently. There are several loopholes that can draw out the hearing process and allow the bogus asylum seekers to stay in the U.S. for years. Then, even if they're given an order of deportation, who's going to force them to leave? If they stay out of trouble with the law, they can stay here for decades.

"If you believe that asylum seekers deserve an opportunity to have their cases heard, then these numbers might be a positive sign," said Austin Kocher, a geographer and research assistant professor at Syracuse University, in a newsletter. "More people will have at least a nominal opportunity to apply for asylum instead of being turned away outright at the border."

But by clogging the immigration courts with bogus asylum claims, the fakers make it nearly impossible for people who don't abuse the asylum system to get a timely hearing.

The negotiations between the White House and Senate Republicans to come up with a deal on border security are going to try to address the crisis by reducing the number of people granted legitimate asylum claims to be heard in court. It looks like with aid to Ukraine and Israel in the balance, something may actually get done.