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Utah’s immigration court has been stretched so thin since Judge Dustin Pead left in August to become a federal magistrate, several local attorneys say their pending cases have been pushed back well into 2014.
“I’ve never seen cases backed up so far,” Salt Lake City immigration attorney Tim Wheelwright said.
The state already ranks 10th in the country for backlogged immigration cases, with an average wait time of 543 days, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University. California is the most backed up, with immigration cases pending in the system for an average of 681 days.
But of the 26 states that operate full-time immigration courts, Utah is the only one with just a single judge handling cases in person.
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