Disputes About Quotas for Social Security Judges Offer Insight On IJ Caseloads
Image Mine
In late July, WaPo ran a story with this compelling headline: Social Security judges must resolve 500 to 700 disputes per year. A watchdog says that might be too many. The subheading read: “87 percent of the judges surveyed told the Government Accountability Office the goals were too high.”
The article talks about the contrast between the government’s “expectation” that individual SSA judges resolve so many cases and the judges’ own understanding of the numbers as a “quota” that they’ll be disciplined for failing to meet. Indeed, more than 80% of SSA judges met that figure in FY2019.
Here’s a few more interesting tibits. Backlocks: there were more than 400,000 SSA claims pending at the end of 2020, down from the more than 1,000,000 pending in 2016. Evidence: each SSA case involves extensive evidence — thousands pages of medical records. And, finally, the real kicker, in SSA courts, decisions that FAVOR the beneficiary are NOT APPEALED by the government. So, there’s an odd incentive for SSA judges to grant benefits.
OK — so let’s talk about what’s really of interest to immprofs. How does this compare to IJs?
- The quota for IJs is higher: resolving 700 cases is “satisfactory.”
- The immigration backlog is higher: 1.38 million.
- Immigration cases can involve a lot of evidence. (See, e.g., here, here)
- The government is ten times more likely than the non-citizen to appeal an unfavorable ruling (see page 1180).
All of which is to say… this “watchdog” outrage over the SSA sheds a pretty negative light on the current demands facing IJs… not to mention the related negative outcomes for noncitizens who appear before them.
-KitJ