19 Jan 2022
Immigration Court Case Backlog Explodes
"The U.S. Immigration Court system is currently staring up a mountain of pending cases that at the end of December 2021 reached 1,596,193 — the largest in history. If every person with a pending immigration case were gathered together it would be larger than the population of Philadelphia, the sixth largest city in the United States. 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."
Yet a disturbing new trend has emerged during the Biden administration that demands attention: since the start of the Biden administration, the growth of the backlog has been accelerating at a breakneck pace.
At the start of the Bush administration the backlog stood at just 149,338. By 2008, the backlog had grown substantially and continued to grow under President Obama. And it only accelerated under President Trump. But in recent months, the rate of growth has exploded."