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U.S. immigration courts have hit a historic backlog jam not seen in decades, sparking years-long delays for immigrants seeking asylum, according to a new report.
Pending cases at the end of December reached 1.6 million -- the largest ever in the court's four-decade history, according to the report released Tuesday by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a research group in New York that tracks U.S. immigration cases. Wait times for an asylum claim hearing are averaging 58 months -- or just under 5 years.
The mounting backlog of cases - up from 1.3 million at the end of 2020 - creates another immigration challenge for President Joe Biden administration, which has struggled to reverse many of the immigration policies of former President Donald Trump.
"These findings suggest that the immigration courts are entering a worrying new era of even more crushing caseloads — all the more concerning since no attempt at a solution has yet been able to reverse the avalanche of cases that immigration judges now face," the report said.
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