Immigration Court Backlog Hits Record Highs, Yet Criminal Cases Fall

The number of cases waiting to be resolved before the Immigration Courts reached a total of more than 285,500 by the end of July 2011. According to the information from the Transitional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), that number is a new all-time high, up 3.7 percent from just 3 months ago. Wait times to get cases resolved also rose.

Interestingly, only 8.3 percent of the pending cases involved a charge of engaging in criminal activities, actions adverse to national security or aiding terrorism. This percentage has fallen during the last ten months. On the other hand, those charged with violating immigration rules made up 90 percent of all cases, and the numbers of those kinds of cases has risen sharply.

Using TRAC’s updated application, you can get information about backlog and wait times by charge on all of the cases filed in the Immigration Courts. In addition, you can drill down to the state, court, hearing office and nationality for both backlog and wait times.

TRAC’s latest report on the Immigration Courts can be viewed at this address:

http://trac.syr.edu/immigration/reports/261/

For TRAC’s Immigration Court Backlog Tool, go to:

http://trac.syr.edu/phptools/immigration/court_backlog/

For more on the charges raised by the DHS in the 3.9 million government deportation proceedings filed in the Immigration Courts during the ten years before and after 9/11, see:

http://trac.syr.edu/immigration/reports/260/

TRAC is self-supporting and depends on foundation grants, individual contributions and subscription fees for the funding needed to obtain, analyze and publish the data we collect on the activities of the US Federal government. To help support TRAC’s ongoing efforts, go to:

http://trac.syr.edu/sponsor/