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The United States has again broken its previous record for the number of immigration cases
waiting to be resolved by a federal court judge. There were nearly 248,000 cases pending by
the middle of June this year, a whopping 33 percent higher than where the figure stood at the
end of fiscal year 2008. The latest numbers come courtesy of researchers at Syracuse
University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, which specializes in federal law
enforcement statistics.
TRAC also found that the average length of time it’s taken to conclude immigration cases during
2010 reached 459 days, a number higher than any year since at least 1998. By state, California
remains the leader in average wait times with more than 640 days. One hearing location in San
Diego posted an extraordinary average wait time of nearly 1,300 days, or to put it another way,
more than three years.
Experts attribute the enormous backlog of immigration cases to a list of possible factors. First, the number of judges available to hear immigration cases is declining, and as of March, one out of every six such positions was unfilled. Just five immigration judges have been sworn in since that time. “[The federal government] still has a very long way to go to fill existing judge
vacancies,” according to TRAC.
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