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The Biden administration’s controversial open border policies are slamming the overwhelmed U.S. Immigration Court system, creating the largest backlog of cases in history. A new report issued by Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) reveals that the backlog is “growing faster than ever, burying judges in an avalanche of cases.” At the end of December pending cases reached a shocking 1,596,193, according to government figures obtained by TRAC under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). To put things in perspective, researchers point out that if every person with a pending immigration case gathered, it would surpass the population of Philadelphia, the nation’s sixth-largest city. Migrants with open cases will wait nearly five years for a court decision determining their status in the U.S.
While the system has seen backlogs under past administrations of both political parties, it has never experienced anything this dire. In fact, the TRAC report states that “a disturbing new trend has emerged during the Biden administration that demands attention: since the start of the Biden administration, the growth of the backlog has been accelerating at a breakneck pace.” For instance, at the start of the George W. Bush administration, the backlog stood at 149,338 and it grew “substantially” under Barack Obama. The problem “only accelerated” under Donald Trump but nothing compares to Biden. In recent months the rate of backlogs in the nation’s Immigration Court system has “exploded,” the TRAC report states, supporting the assessment with government data. Between October and December 2021, the quarterly growth in the number of pending Immigration Court cases shattered records.
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