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More than 420,000 cases are pending in U.S. immigration courts, a steadily growing backlog that immigration lawyers say they hope will be eased by President Barack Obama’s soon-to-be-announced executive actions.
By the end of October, there were 421,972 cases pending in the nation’s 58 immigration courts—an increase of more than 22 percent from around the same time period in 2013, according to data released this week by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse. The number of new removal orders filed against undocumented immigrants grew by 12 percent, from 198,723 in fiscal year 2013 to 222,956 this year.
On Thursday night, Obama is set to announce a series of executive actions aimed at fixing what he has called the country’s “broken immigration system.” Four million to five million immigrants who are illegally in the United States could be affected by the president’s proposals. Obama will face pushback from Republicans in Congress who claim he has overstepped his constitutional authority.
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