Immigrants wait 10 years in US just for a court date, system overwhelmed

US immigration offices have become so overwhelmed with processing migrants for court that some some asylum-seekers who crossed the border at Mexico may be waiting a decade before they even get a date to see a judge.

The backlog stems from a change made two months after President Joe Biden took office, when Border Patrol agents began now-defunct practice of quickly releasing immigrants on parole. They were given instructions to report to a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office at their final destination to be processed for court work previously done by the Border Patrol.

The change prevented the kind of massive overcrowding of holding cells in 2019, when some migrants stood on toilets for room to breathe. But the cost became evident as ICE officers tasked with issuing court papers couldn't keep pace.

Offices in some cities are now telling migrants to come back years from now, and the extra work has strained ICE's capacity for its traditional work of enforcing immigration .