U.S. Immigration Courts Have Huge Backlogs, Leading to Long Waits for Trials

U.S. immigration courts are backlogged with nearly 400,000 cases, and experts say the Obama administration is to blame. The 396,552 cases awaiting adjudication represent a 22 percent increase over last year, according to Syracuse University researchers. Not surprisingly, wait times are up, too. The average case in Imperial, Calif., currently lingers 857 days before resolution. Richard Kelsey, assistant dean at the George Mason University School of Law and a longtime observer of immigration issues, said the problem starts at the White House. “The president has telegraphed that he is going to take some kind of action (on immigration), so neither the courts nor the prosecutors are killing themselves to get things done,” Kelsey told Watchdog.org in an interview. Making the backlogged system even more dysfunctional, defendants often fail to appear for their court hearings...more