Mission, TX - Feb 2023: A Border Patrol agent processes one of a group of 15 Central Americans and Mexicans who crossed the Rio Grande illegally to enter the US. The number of pending cases has increased since 2014 from about 1,700 per judge to about 2,800 now. Image: Vic Hinterlang/Shutterstock.com
By: FEDweek StaffThe Justice Department has been adding immigration judges in recent years but it would need to further increase that corps by half just to keep up with all the new cases – and even a doubling of current levels of judges wouldn’t eliminate a growing case backlog until 2031, a report for Congress has said.
The Congressional Research Service said that while the number of immigration judges — who determine whether foreign nationals charged with immigration violations are removable from the United States and/or are eligible for relief or protection from removal — has increased since 2016 to about 650 currently, the number of cases received have outnumbered resolutions each year since 2008.
With a backlog of now just fewer than 2 million, the number of pending cases has increased since 2014 from about 1,700 per IJ to about 2,800 now, it said. In fiscal 2022, more than 100 IJs were hired, the “largest annual number of hires on record.,” for a net gain above attrition of about 80.
However, based on projections of incoming cases and future attrition, the CRS said that hiring 300 more would be needed to begin to work down the backlog, and at that level there still would be a backlog of some 1.6 million cases in 2033. To eliminate the backlog by that date would requiring hiring an additional 700, it said.
Meanwhile, though, the Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review “has identified challenges with IJ hiring. The hiring process can be time intensive; EOIR has stated that vetting and hiring IJs has historically taken more than one year.”
Recent improvements have cut hiring time by about half, it said, “Nevertheless, new judges require time to learn on the job, which impacts case completion rates.”
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