| Immigration Court Backlog Jumps While Case Processing Slows |
| (08 Jun 2018)
The Immigration Court's backlog keeps rising. As of the end of May 2018, the number of cases waiting decision reached an all-time high of 714,067.
This compares with a court backlog of 542,411 cases at the end of January 2017 when President Trump assumed office. During his term the backlog has increased by almost a third (32%) with 171,656 more cases added.
The pace of court filings has not increased - indeed, case filings are running slightly behind that of last year at this time. What appears to be driving the burgeoning backlog is the lengthening time it now takes to schedule hearings and complete proceedings in the face of the court's over-crowded dockets. For example, cases that ultimately result in a removal order are taking 28 percent longer to process than last year - up from 392 days to an average of 501 days - from the date of the Notice to Appear (NTA) to the date of the decision. And compared with the last full fiscal year of the Obama administration, cases resulting in removal take an average of 42 percent longer. Decisions granting asylum or another type of relief now take over twice as long as removal decisions. Relief decisions this year on average took 1,064 days - up 17 percent - from last year. Wait times in Houston, San Antonio, Chicago, Imperial (California), Denver, and Arlington (Virginia) now average over 1,400 days before an immigrant is even scheduled for a hearing on his or her case. At many hearing locations hearings are currently being scheduled beyond 2021 before an available slot on the docket is found. To read the full report, including how long at each court hearing location current cases are waiting before their hearing is scheduled, go to: http://trac.syr.edu/immigration/reports/516/ In addition, many of TRAC's free query tools - which track the court's overall backlog, new DHS filings, court dispositions and much more - have now been updated through May 2018. For an index to the full list of TRAC's immigration tools go to: http://trac.syr.edu/imm/tools/ If you want to be sure to receive notifications whenever updated data become available, sign up at: http://tracfed.syr.edu/cgi-bin/tracuser.pl?pub=1&list=imm or follow us on Twitter @tracreports or like us on Facebook: http://facebook.com/tracreports TRAC is self-supporting and depends on foundation grants, individual contributions and subscription fees for the funding needed to obtain, analyze and publish the data we collect on the activities of the U.S. federal government. To help support TRAC's ongoing efforts, go to: http://trac.syr.edu/cgi-bin/sponsor/sponsor.pl |
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