 |
|
Syracuse University researchers sounded the alarm about the "accelerating" case backlog in the immigration courts, reporting that the backlog surpassed 3 million open cases in November, growing by roughly 1 million cases over the past year.
Syracuse's Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, or TRAC, pointed out that the multimillion-case backlog means that each immigration judge has approximately 4,500 cases to hear.
"Immigration judges are swamped," TRAC said on Monday. "If every person with a pending immigration case were gathered together, it would be larger than the population of Chicago, the third largest city in the United States. Indeed, the number of waiting immigrants in the court's backlog is now larger than the population found in many states."
The caseload, however, only assumes that the backlog remains stable, a possibility that looks unlikely, according to the report.
Over the past year, TRAC said the backlog has grown at accelerating speeds. From July to September, an average 130,000 new cases per month were added to the backlog, but October and November saw 140,000 new cases, according to the report.
Although the past four presidential administrations each faced a backlogged immigration court, the Biden administration faces an "even more daunting challenge" than its predecessors, TRAC said.
|
|
|
|
