 |
|
Migrants legally living in the Unite States while awaiting court hearings on permanent residency will now have to wait even longer, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Immigration judges are going to first handle some of the 220,000 illegals apprehended at the Mexico border since October 2013 in the hope of deterring more from coming. The consequence is that everyone else on the docket will have their day in court postponed — perhaps for years, according to the newspaper.
In Houston, all files have been set aside so that hearings can focus on pressing juvenile or detention cases.
While funding for the U.S. Border Patrol increased by 30 percent, the underfunded and understaffed immigration court budget grew by just 8 percent. The system is backlogged by 375,000 cases with an average wait time of 520 days, the Journal said, citing the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a Syracuse University project.
|
|
|
|
