US immigration backlog reaches new record of 3 million pending cases: report
The Immigration Court backlog in the U.S. surpassed three million pending cases last month amid a continued crisis at the Southern Border.
The three million pending cases reported in November include one million that were added within the previous 12 months, according to a report from the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University.
Immigration judges currently average 4,500 pending cases each, TRAC reported.
"Previous administrations — all the way back through at least the George W. Bush administration — have failed when they tried to tackle the seemingly intractable problem of the Immigration Court 'backlog.' Recently, however, the accelerating growth in the Court's backlog has transformed the problem into an even more daunting challenge," TRAC's report noted.
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During the last quarter, from July to September, the backlog rose by nearly 400,000 cases at an average increase of 130,000 cases per month, according to the report. The monthly growth was even higher in October and November at an average of 140,000 cases per month.
In comparison, the backlog in September 2016 was sitting at 516,031 cases, roughly one-sixth of the current total, according to an analysis by TRAC. The 278 immigration judges at the time, during the final fiscal year of the Obama administration, completed an average of around 750 cases each year while the average caseload assigned was 1,850 per judge.
The backlog accelerated during the Trump years, the report highlighted. The backlog grew two and a half times more by September 2020, during the final fiscal year of the Trump administration, compared to September 2016. During this time, the number of judges also grew to 484, and average pending caseloads were around 2,600 per judge.
The number of new judges hired accelerated during the first three years of the Biden administration, with a total of 682 immigration judges now sitting on the bench. Each judge also closed an average of around 975 cases during the latest fiscal year, a closure rate nearly a third greater than seven years ago during the final year of the Obama administration.
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Despite having more judges and higher case closures per judge, the judges still have not been able to keep pace with the number of incoming cases. Because of this, the average caseloads of the 682 judges on the bench have risen to 4,500 per judge.
Fox News' Griff Jenkins reported that Eagle Pass, Texas, was overwhelmed with migrants Monday night when more than 4,000 illegally crossed the Southern Border, on top of the more than 4,000 already in custody.
Video footage obtained by Fox News' Bill Melugin showed thousands of migrants in Eagle Pass waiting to be processed by Border Patrol after they crossed illegally on Monday.
Fox News' Griff Jenkins and Bill Melugin contributed to this report.