Unclogging the immigration courts

Greg Chen from the American Immigration Lawyers Association and Peter L. Markowitz from Cardozo Law School offer suggestions for unclogging the immigration courts in their op-ed for The Hill.

[T]he Justice Department must also identify categories of non priority immigration court cases that can be dismissed now. One obvious category is the estimated 460,000 cases — an astounding 37 percent of the current backlog — that involve individuals who could qualify, under current law, for legal status. It makes little sense to waste limited enforcement resources by having immigration prosecutors and judges spend years trying these cases in court, when trained adjudicators at another agency, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, can handle them more efficiently through paper applications.  

Another category of cases that should be removed from judges’ dockets are the 200,000 cases that have been pending for more than five years. By definition, these old cases are ones that prosecutors and judges have deemed low priorities.  

MHC