The US Immigration Courts, Dumping Ground for the Nation’s Systemic Immigration Failures: The Causes, Composition, and Politically Difficult Solutions to the Court Backlog

This paper looks in detail at the many factors that have led to a backlog of cases pending in our immigration courts. By the end of fiscal year 2023, the backlog had reached 1.8 million cases. For each cause, the paper makes recommendations that would reduce the backlog. Some of the causes are administrative—such as insufficient funding to keep up with the volume of cases being entered into the system by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS); a lack of discretion available to Immigration Judges (IJs) and difficulty IJs face in managing their caseload; and a failure by DHS to apply enforcement priorities to keep lower priority cases out of the court system. The authors also trace some of the causes to the failure to update our immigration laws over the past several decades, and recommend legislation to include, among other things: legalization of undocumented immigrants residing in the U.S. for many years; more generous relief from deportation for those with equities in the U.S.; creation of a statute of limitations for civil violations of immigration law; and making the immigration courts an independent entity, insulated from enforcement priorities of the administration in power. In all, the paper concludes with over two dozen recommendations that would make our immigration courts—and our immigration system in general—more efficient and humane. (Maurice Belanger, Maurice Belanger Associates)

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