Colorado's Immigration Court Backlog Has Skyrocketed From 18,000 to 78,000 Pending Cases in Two Years

Colorado's Immigrant Defense Fund, established by the Democratic-controlled Colorado legislature back in 2021 to assist people facing deportation, originally put aside $100,000 to help immigrants get lawyers and pay for the immigration court equivalent of public defenders. The fund was small yet proportional to the number of immigrants fighting to stay in the country at the moment.

However, after more than 43,000 asylum-seekers have arrived in Denver since late 2022, the Fund is now facing major challenges amid a surging immigration court backlog, limited resources and a court backlog that has increased from 18,000 to 78,000 pending cases, as The Colorado Sun reports. In that time, the fund has grown to $700,000, yet remains insufficient given the current demand.

As a result, there are now around 7,116 cases per immigration judge and 1,565 cases per attorney, turning Colorado immigration courts into the lowest ranked in the country when it comes to the percentage of immigrants with legal representation, with only 15% of cases involving attorneys.

Making matter worse, Colorado has few law schools and large nonprofits to provide the volume of free legal assistance seen in places like New York and California. The Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network, Colorado's largest provider of immigrant legal services, uses state funds primarily to represent detainees in Aurora's ICE detention center.

Colorado also has fewer large nonprofits with the funds to help immigrants fight deportation. New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco, other places with large immigrant populations, have nonprofits with larger funding. As the Colorado Sun reports, all of this scenario has massive implications for immigrants:

"In Colorado, immigrants who do not have a lawyer are 60% more likely to have a judge order them to be deported, according to the Colorado Fiscal Institute. A review of immigration cases that were closed from 1997-2024 found that 85% of people fighting their cases alone ended up with a deportation order."

The Colorado Fiscal Institute has underscored the economic implications, noting that detained immigrants in Colorado lost $10 million in income between 2021 and 2023, impacting the state's economy and tax revenues. Despite proposed federal legislation to increase representation in immigration courts, Congress has struggled to reach consensus on immigration reform, and Colorado continues to face significant limitations in legal resources for immigrants.

Advocates, backed by a study from the liberal-leaning Colorado Fiscal Institute, have proposed boosting it to $5 million per year, which would still only help a small fraction of the 78,000 people whose cases are pending.