Immigration courts clear cases at a 50% higher rate

During the first quarter of 2024, immigration judges completed twice as many cases compared to the same period last year, as per data from the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University. Nearly 200,000 cases were resolved from October to December 2023, up from 132,000 cases during the corresponding period in the previous year. This increase is crucial given the immigration courts’ backlog, which has grown by a million cases over the past year. By December 2023, there were 3,287,058 active pending cases in immigration courts. Despite accelerated hiring of new immigration judges during the first three years of the Biden administration, judges still grapple with an average caseload of 4,500 cases per judge.