On 1 June, the US Government Accountability Office issued a report showing that the case backlog of US immigration courts has more than doubled from the 2006 fiscal year through to 2015. There are currently as many as 437,000 cases pending, with hearings scheduled for February 2022 by at least one court.
At the beginning of the 2006 fiscal year, there were 212,000 pending cases, with the median pending time of 198 days. The median pending time has also increased with the number of cases, to as much as 404 days. The US Government Accountability Office also found that the increase of backlogged cases in immigration courts is so dramatic because of a fall in the cases concluded every year.
The Center for Immigration Studies analyzed the results and pointed out that that the rise appears not to be the result of additional new cases, but that there has been an 86 percent increase in the amount of ‘other’ receipts accepted by the courts. These include motions to reconsider, reopen, or re-calendar cases, as well as remands from the Board of Immigration Appeals.
Immigration judges seem more hesitant to make immediate rulings and to deport undocumented immigrants, even if deportation appears to be justifiable. Another possible factor in the large backlog of immigration cases is the policies of the Obama administration, which changed hundreds of thousands of deportation cases to low priority.