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The immigration case backlog stood at 610,524 at the end of June, up from 598,943 a month earlier, with California and Texas each contributing more than 100,000 cases, according to a report from the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University.
In May, the White House proposed tackling the backlog by hiring 75 more immigration judges and about 375 additional immigration-related employees. The director of the EOIR, James McHenry, said in June after he hired 11 immigration judges that he intended to “maximiz[e] the use and effectiveness of current adjudicatory capacity” as well as identify ways to “enhance immigration judge productivity without compromising due process.”
Judge Marks noted that retirement rates of immigration judges also pose a challenge to managing the pressures of an overwhelming caseload, citing a June report from the Government Accountability Office that 39 percent of the immigration judge corps was eligible to retire.
“We fear that experienced judges will retire at the earliest possible opportunity, which would result in a devastating loss of expertise and much needed wo/manpower to address our recalcitrant backlog,” she said.
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