Upcoming Webinar Will Feature Discussion of New Findings WASHINGTON, DC — The U.S. immigration courts are facing an historic crisis, struggling to handle a backlog of nearly 3.8 million deportation cases through a system capped at a maximum 800 immigration judges—resulting in average wait times of about four years for an initial asylum hearing. A new Migration Policy Institute (MPI) policy brief out today examines how decades of underfunding, mounting asylum applications and heavy reliance on shifting executive actions have left the immigration courts struggling to carry out their responsibilities effectively, thereby weakening immigration enforcement overall. In Breaking the Cycle of Dysfunction at the U.S. Immigration Courts, Kathleen Bush-Joseph, Doris Meissner and Muzaffar Chishti note the urgent need for adequate funding and administrative and legislative reforms to ensure the courts system can process cases in a timely and equitable manner. “The backlogs and cycle of dysfunction this policy brief describes represent dangerous weak links that pose national security risks, compromise due process, incentivize filing weak or fraudulent claims, and forestall asylum and other humanitarian protections for eligible noncitizens, while permitting those who are ineligible to remain in the country for years instead of being deported,’’ the analysts write. They outline how the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR), the immigration courts system housed within the Justice Department, is operating under severe strain amid a record caseload that has more than doubled since 2021. Record asylum filings have been the driver of this increase, with more than 900,000 asylum applications submitted in fiscal year (FY) 2024. Today, asylum claims represent 63 percent of all cases pending before the immigration courts. The brief details how funding imbalances and policy inconsistency have compounded longstanding challenges. While immigration enforcement agencies have received massive budget increases in recent decades—most recently getting $170 billion over four years through the One Big Beautiful Bill Act—the immigration courts have gotten a fraction of that total: $844 million this year. This resource allocation, which represents 2.5 percent of what U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) receive, leaves the courts without the capacity to keep pace with filings. Staffing shortfalls have only grown more acute: since January, the Trump administration has fired, transferred or seen the retirement of at least 139 immigration judges. In their stead, the administration plans to assign hundreds of military lawyers as temporary judges—an unprecedented move that has raised concerns about fairness and due process given the vastly different natures of U.S. military and immigration law. At the same time, about 68 percent of noncitizens in removal proceedings in 2024 lacked legal representation, and federal funding for legal orientation and other programs has since been cut. The result is a court system that leaves both those seeking protection and those facing removal in prolonged uncertainty, delaying resolution for all parties. With Congress having approved historically high levels of funding for immigration enforcement, the policy brief calls for some of the new funds to be directed to transformation of the immigration courts and the asylum system (which includes the affirmative asylum adjudications function within U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services). To establish functionality and fairness, the brief outlines the need for a combination of executive and congressional measures, including: - Reprogramming sufficient resources from Congress’ recent enforcement funding increases to expand adjudication capacity for asylum and removal cases, commensurate with the investments being made in CBP and ICE capacities.
- Fully implementing the 2022 asylum officer rule, allowing trained USCIS asylum officers to decide new border-filed claims and thus enabling immigration judges to focus on the existing caseload.
- Prioritizing cases involving national-security and public-safety concerns while deferring lower-risk matters until the backlog declines.
- Modernizing court operations through expanded electronic filing, digital communication with parties and improved public access to case information.
- Expanding access to legal advice and representation in partnership with nonprofit providers, bar associations and other community organizations.
Transformation, the authors note, is essential not only to delivering timely decisions for those seeking protection or facing removal, but also to ensuring the credibility of the entire U.S. immigration system. A functional court system is central to maintaining public confidence that immigration laws are being administered fairly and effectively. The brief is the latest in MPI’s Rethinking U.S. Immigration Policy initiative, which was launched in 2019. Read the policy brief here: www.migrationpolicy.org/research/dysfunction-immigration-courts.
* * * The authors and other experts will discuss the crisis in the courts system and a way forward during a webinar on November 24. For more information and to register, click here. | 
