Biden's border crisis: Our immigration courts have a 2,023,441 case backlog and it's more than we can handle

The Border Patrol had more than 2.2 million encounters with illegal crossers between ports of entry on the Southwest border in fiscal 2022.   

A recent report from the DHS Inspector General indicates that most of the illegal crossers are not put in detention facilities or expelled under Title 42, but rather are processed for outcomes allowing them to be released into the United States to wait for immigration hearings. This has overwhelmed the immigration courts.  

The immigration court backlog was 1,262,765 cases at the end of fiscal 2020, which was the last full fiscal year of the previous administration. Under the current administration, it has risen to 2,023,441 cases as of the end of November 2022.  

Almost 800,000 of them have submitted asylum applications and are waiting for an asylum hearing. The average wait from when an application is filed to when an applicant’s case will be heard is 1,572 days, or 4.3 years.