Chicago – December 28, 2023
The nation’s immigration court backlog swelled by more than 1 million cases in 2023, according to new data, as the number of migrants seeking asylum at the U.S. border surged.
The backlog surpassed 3 million cases in November, rising from 1.9 million cases in September 2022, according to Syracuse University’s Transaction Records Access Clearinghouse, or TRAC, which compiles and analyzes federal immigration data.
There are now more immigrants in the U.S. with a pending immigration case than people living in Chicago, the nation’s third-largest city, TRAC concluded. Some are not due to appear in court for years as judges grapple with caseloads of more than 4,000 each.
The quickly growing backlog is becoming a political liability for President Joe Biden heading into an election year in which immigration is shaping up to be a defining issue for voters.
“The courts can only do so much when the Biden administration has opened the spigot at the border,” said Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, at a Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing in October. “Our immigration judges can’t do their job, just being flooded with these huge numbers.”
The Biden administration has tried to address the backlog by hiring 302 judges to the nation’s immigration courts. The White House is asking in its 2024 budget request for funding to hire 150 more.
