U.S. Immigration Courts Have Huge Backlogs, Leading to Long Waits for Trials

U.S. immigration courts are backlogged with nearly 400,000 cases, and experts say the Obama administration is to blame.

The 396,552 cases awaiting adjudication represent a 22 percent increase over last year, according to Syracuse University researchers.

Not surprisingly, wait times are up, too. The average case in Imperial, Calif., currently lingers 857 days before resolution.

Richard Kelsey, assistant dean at the George Mason University School of Law and a longtime observer of immigration issues, said the problem starts at the White House.

“The president has telegraphed that he is going to take some kind of action (on immigration), so neither the courts nor the prosecutors are killing themselves to get things done,” Kelsey said  in an interview.

“Anyone who thinks there’s no correlation has their head buried so deep in sand they’re not getting enough air.”

Bob Dane, spokesman for the enforcement-oriented Federation for American Immigration Reform, sees other bad actors, as well:

One reason the backlogs are building is that while illegal aliens who are caught crossing the border can accept a swift, no-fuss voluntary departure, most don’t opt for it. And why would they? They’re egged on to buy time by their immigration attorneys, local amnesty groups, the ACLU, the Mexican-American Legal Defense Fund and La Raza.

WHO AND WHERE? Interactive chart tracks court caseloads and nationalities of defendants.

Making the backlogged system even more dysfunctional, defendants often fail to appear for their court hearings.

“Unlike normal court proceedings where a notice of the hearing must be served … there is no legal requirement that these individuals actually receive notification — only that a notice be sent out to the address they have,” said Susan Long, associate professor of managerial studies at Syracuse.

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