Immigration
Migrants will wait up to 10 years to get a court date
The dates to get a court date vary from state to state, but in some places, migrants are having to wait up to ten years in order to see a judge
April 28, 2023 7:38am
Updated: April 28, 2023 7:38am
Asylum seekers arriving in the U.S. through the Mexican border could wait up to 10 years to get a court date to process their cases as immigration offices continue to deal with an unprecedented number of applications.
At the time President Biden took office, migrant holding cells were becoming overcrowded. To prevent crowded conditions at border facilities, Biden allowed Border Patrol agents to release immigrants on parole, expecting them to report to a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office at their final destination to be processed for court.
However, the policy change brought about an unexpected consequence: ICE officials could not keep up with the number of court papers they had to issue—something that is outside the agency’s traditional tasks.
“We’re being stretched to the limit,” said Jamison Matuszewski, director of enforcement and removal operations in San Diego.
The dates to get a court date vary from state to state, but in some places, migrants are having to wait up to ten years in order to see a judge. In New York, for example, ICE has told asylum-seekers to wait until March 2033 with more than 40,000 migrants on the waitlist. In other places, such as San Antonio, Miramar, Florida, Los Angeles, Washington, Chicago, Denver, Mount Laurel, New Jersey, Milwaukee, and Jacksonville Florida, migrants have to wait until March 2027.
However, their struggle with waiting times does not end there. Once migrants finally get a court date for their initial hearing, their case will move through the U.S. immigration courts—a process that can take almost four years.
“The asylum system is in dire need of reform from top to bottom,” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said last week.
ICE’s acting director, Tae Johnson, has told lawmakers that the agency wants to implement online interviews to help cut the long waiting times and is asking Congress to issue court orders electronically. Such measures would “quickly eliminate” the backlog, he said.
