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1. With a backlog of more than 360,000 cases, the average wait for a case to be resolved in immigration court is 578 days.
2. The next available court dates at Chicago’s immigration court are in 2016 at the earliest. Chicago has the fourth highest case backlog in the country.
3. Due to the lack of funding, immigration courts simply cannot keep up with the huge surge in enforcement activity. Between 2002 and 2013, funding for the courts rose by 70 percent while immigration enforcement spending increased 300 percent.
4. Many immigrants remain in detention while awaiting their hearing, separated from their families and communities, and often with little access to legal counsel and other services.
5. Although immigration judges should be able to consider ties to the United States, like American family members, many judges do not have enough time to consider the cases before them. In 2012, 152,426 U.S. citizen children lost a parent due to deportation.
6. Immigrants—including children—do not get appointed counsel. Last year, 41% represented themselves in immigration court. In most cases, it’s up to the judge or opposing counsel–whose job is to seek deportation—to provide information on the legal process.
7. Due to the court backlog and limited resources for staffing, immigration judges have very little time to decide immigration cases. One immigration judge likened immigration court to “doing death-penalty cases in a traffic court setting.”
8. While judges in the criminal justice system are typically staffed with four law clerks each, immigration judges often share one clerk with other immigration judges.
9. A hardware crash of the immigration court computer system has made it nearly impossible for immigration attorneys and individuals with hearings to navigate the system since April 12th.
10. Due to budgetary restrictions, a January 2011 hiring freeze reduced 272 immigration judges to 249. Nearly half of the judges who are left will be eligible for retirement in 2015.
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