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Houston's immigration court case load jumped from 4,723 in 2009 to 12,280 through the end of September - an increase of 160 percent, according to an analysis by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a data gathering and research organization at Syracuse University. Wait times also increased to an average of 453 days locally, up from 298 in 2009.
The national backlog also swelled to a high of 325,044 by Sept. 30, despite recent efforts by Department of Homeland Security officials to cull from court dockets cases involving illegal immigrants who have lived in the U.S. for years without committing crimes, the data show.
The recent Syracuse data highlights persistent problems dogging the nation's immigration court system, which critics say has suffered from chronic understaffing and processing delays.
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