Firing of Immigration Judges Set To Increase Delays In Cases Up To a Decade

Over the past weeks, the Trump administration has fired immigration judges as part of its plan to downsize the government and cut public spending. But with fewer judges handling such cases, courts are expected to see the already massive backlog of cases expand even further.

The Trump administration has introduced production quotas for judges in an effort to reduce the backlogs. According to the Justice Department's Executive Office for Immigration Review, immigration judges must complete 700 cases a year to earn a satisfactory grade.

But according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) and immigration lawyers that talked to Border Report, considering the recent firings and the nearly four million cases backlogged, undocumented immigrants could be in the U.S. for a decade before their cases see any resolution.

"I've got master hearings — that are the initial hearings — that are not till like, two or three years from now and then after that, it's going to be a few more years before you would have the final hearing individual so you could be talking in some jurisdictions upwards of six, seven plus years for a case to be adjudicated," William Brooks, a Houston immigration lawyer, told Border Report.

After the most recent layoffs there are about 735 immigration judges left nationwide and every judge would have to deal with about 6,000 cases each.

Although the Trump administration fired judges citing the need to cutting costs, Congress had appropriated money to hire up to 100 immigration judges per year over the past decade. However, as U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX) pointed out to Border Report, many of the positions have not been filled despite record caseloads.

Claudia Galan, an immigration lawyer with offices in San Antonio and Edinburg, told the outlet that she has clients who have been arrested since Trump took office on Jan. 20 and that she is noticing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) holding more in detention facilities, and bonds not issued for their release as they await their court hearings.

According to data from TRAC, there were about 3.7 million pending immigration cases by December of 2024, with 1.7 million of those having filed formal asylum applications.

Data shows that during Fiscal Year 2024, immigration courts completed 914,812 cases, a record for the most closures in a single fiscal year and a 36% increase from the previous high of 678,848 cases closed in 2023.

The most pending deportation cases were reported in Miami-Dade County, in Florida, while cases in Montana had the highest proportion ordered removed.

Amid all the changes to immigration courts and judges, Galan says she has also noticed a change in administrative procedure whereby more legal motions are being filed, and less in-person proceedings are being held.

"There's no open environment," she said. "It's like a wall going up that's being enforced at all courts," adding that different immigration courts in different jurisdictions hold proceedings in their own way.

Galan said this can be a disadvantage for clients, as it means less face-time in court with immigration judges and prosecutors, and fewer options for lawyers to speak about the case to others and to try to work out terms.