Deportation court cases grow

Justice Department agency grapples with backlog, delays

FALLS CHURCH, Va. — The Justice Department agency that oversees deportation proceedings is buying real estate for new courts, creating an online filing system, streamlining training and hiring judges — and it still can’t keep up.

“We are working on what we can control, and we’re trying to keep the momentum going,” said James McHenry, who leads the Executive Office for Immigration Review.

The agency is grappling with an inherited backlog that has ballooned to 1 million deportation cases, a years-long wait for hearings and White House pressure. And the problem is worsening. In October 2019, its monthly caseload was 35,776. In October 2017, it was 15,045.

Unlike independent trial courts, immigration court judges and employees work under Attorney General William Barr.

President Donald Trump has railed against the country’s immigration system, accusing asylum-seekers who flee their home countries because of violence and poverty of trying to game the system. The court backlog existed long before Trump took office. But a crackdown on the Southwest border and illegal immigration, plus a surge in asylum-seeking families from Central America, have added more cases.

The Associated Press recently visited immigration courts in 11 cities in late fall, observing scores of hearings that illustrated how the crushing caseloads and shifting policies are creating turmoil.

Executive Office for Immigration Review officials say it will take time for the changes they are implementing to sink in across a system where the average time is 130 days for cases where the immigrant is held in detention, and about 970 days — nearly three years — when the person is not detained. Plus, Justice Department officials ordered immigration judges to stop putting cases on hold indefinitely — a tool they used to manage a swelling docket. That brought hundreds of thousands of cases back.

McHenry and his staff are focusing on the data, technology and methodology in their agency. But they can’t control the entire immigration system.

“If we can get the backlog to decrease even a little bit, that would be tremendous,” he said.

Among their biggest changes is the recent creation of electronic filing system that is already being piloted in Houston; Aurora, Colo.; and Philadelphia that will eventually replace mountains of paperwork stored in blue files used by most judges.

Under the new system, judges can generate orders, send information and read up on files. The system is meant for everyone who deals with immigration court — attorneys and multiple agencies involved in immigration enforcement — and synthesizes all information so it can be accessed by all. It allows judges to check family histories, send orders and take notes. They can generate a court date with one click.

By the end of this year, 36 sites should be online.

Immigration attorney Ruby Powers, who practices in Houston, said she hasn’t seen the new system make a dent yet, but it’s new. And she and other attorneys welcome any chance to use less paper. She said about five years ago there was a less-comprehensive version of an electronic system, but it fizzled.

“In general, we have a hope of being more efficient,” she said.

The Executive Office for Immigration Review has asked for a budget of $673 million this year — up from $312 million in 2014, in part to construct more courtrooms. Right now, it has 439 judges. It can hire 534, but doesn’t have courtroom space.