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The backlog of asylum cases has surpassed 800,000 for the first time, while the overall backlog of pending immigration court cases has likewise reached an all-time high of nearly 2.1 million, according to new data released Wednesday.
The asylum backlog reached 806,494 cases in December, with applicants waiting on average more than four years for a hearing, according to a report from the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, or TRAC. The TRAC report, which was based on information obtained from the Executive Office for Immigration Review through Freedom of Information Act requests, said the overall backlog stood at 2,056,328 as of last month.
The new data from TRAC, a research data center affiliated with Syracuse University, comes amid the Biden administration's push to curb unlawful immigration. Earlier this month, President Joe Biden expanded a humanitarian parole program providing a limited legal pathway for 30,000 migrants from Venezuela, Haiti, Cuba and Nicaragua to temporarily enter the country each month. The program requires U.S. sponsors with enough resources to support parolees, and applicants must pass stringent security and vetting checks.
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