As of July 2016, the pending case backlog before the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) passed half a million, at a record high of 502, 976. The average wait time in 2016 before an immigrant can even appear in court is about 676 days, slightly under two years. This figure is more than double what an immigrant would have waited in 1998.
While there are many reasons for this huge back-up, three factors in particular are considered primary contributors to it. First, from 2008 to 2014, the dragnet program Secure Communities caused a significant uptick in the backlog as local police departments readily handed over countless arrested undocumented immigrants to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which in turn fed them into the court system. Then, following the massive influx of families and unaccompanied minors from Central America in the summer of 2014, the Department of Justice prioritized such cases ahead of those already on the docket. In this attempt to respond to the large group of new immigrants effectively, DOJ left many immigrants waiting in the wings much longer for their day in court. Finally, federal spending allocation toward the immigration court system rose only 74% between 2003 and 2015, whereas spending for U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) rose 105%. These budgeting priorities on enforcement over judicial support led to 200,000 cases being added to the total immigration court docket nationwide, while the number of immigration judges plateaued from 2011-2014 in parallel to a DOJ hiring freeze.
Now, Secure Communities is no more, the administrative fallout in the aftermath of the 2014 Central American migration boom has reduced, and DOJ is apparently on an immigration judge hiring spree to counteract the record backlog. Today in fact, an all-time high of 277 immigration judges are working nationwide, DOJ has 100 candidates going through the recruitment process, and it bears authorization to hire up to 374 more immigration judges. While this hiring effort by the government will hopefully help reduce the tremendous backlog, many more new immigration judges may be required, as Human Rights First estimates that it would take approximately 524 immigration judges to clear the system’s backlog within a year. Clearly, EOIR and DOJ have their work cut out for them.