WASHINGTON — The backlog of deportation, political-asylum and other cases awaiting a hearing in federal immigration courts has reached an all-time high even as a record number of judge positions remained unfilled, according to a report released Friday.
The analysis by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a nonpartisan research organization at Syracuse University, found that 228,421 cases were awaiting a hearing in the first months of the 2010 fiscal year, which began Oct. 1, up 23 percent since the end of the 2008 fiscal year, and 82 percent higher than 10 years ago.
The average wait for a hearing is also longer than ever: an average of 439 days nationwide, and as long as 713 days in Los Angeles and 612 days in Boston immigration courts.
Although much of the backlog is due to an increase in immigration cases, successive administrations have exacerbated the situation by failing to fill vacancies on the immigration courts, the report found.
Immigration judges are appointed by the attorney general without need of congressional approval. Although Congress has allocated funds for additional judge positions over the past several years, they have not been filled. According to the report, as of January there were 48 vacancies on the court, one out of six of the total judge positions available.
The Obama administration has failed to keep pace with turnover of existing judges, the report found, causing the judges with regular caseloads to drop from 229 last year to 227 this year.
“The failure to fill positions that Congress has provided money for is baffling,” said TRAC co-director David Burnham.
In response, Thomas Snow, acting director of the Executive Office for Immigration Review, which oversees immigration courts, released a public letter to TRAC’s directors charging that “the report is unbalanced and fails to acknowledge the effort and progress that the (EOIR) has made, and continues to make, to address the immigration caseload. Filling vacant immigration judge positions is the most important priority for EOIR.”
