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The immigration court system is designed to uphold the right to due process of anyone who is being tried in the United States. This means that all immigration hopefuls - including the caravans of asylum-seekers crossing the US-Mexico border - must have their case heard in front of an immigration judge before they can be deported.
The courts, which are vast, complicated and frequently understaffed, are overseen by the Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review, or EOIR. Currently, there are 350 immigration judges working across the country.
History of the Backlog
These judges are working on a case backlog that’s grown to nearly 685,000 cases over the last decade.
This increased backlog has been steadily growing since 2008, with active deportation cases growing by over 100,000 cases during the 2016 - 2017 fiscal year, according to Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC).
The case backlog began growing under the Obama Administration, which increased efforts to deport undocumented immigrants with criminal histories. With the Trump Administration's vendetta against all forms of immigration, the backlog has understandably grown significantly larger.
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