Analysis: Immigration court backlog at 3.7 million despite record number of cases closed

Data from the research group TRAC shows there are more than 3.7 million pending cases in immigration court. That’s despite a record number of cases being closed this past year.

“So to a large degree, the courts were artificially loaded during the Trump and some other administrations, just by pumping a lot of people into the system – even though they are undocumented, they have rights, and one of them is due process, and they have the option of presenting their case to an immigration judge,” said Phoenix immigration attorney Marcos Garciaacosta. “The other group of people that are probably making up the majority of the current backlog are ... relatively recent arrivals.”

TRAC’s analysis shows a record 900,000 cases closed in the 2024 fiscal year.

Garciaacosta says some cases were closed using prosecutorial discretion. Others that qualified were directed away from the courts to other immigration pathways — like Temporary Protected Status.

“It kind of reduces the pressure on the immigration courts, so if we had a Harris administration, for example, and she were to continue the same Biden policies, I would foresee the number of cases to go down,” he said.

Garciaacosta says under the new Trump administration, deportations are likely to go up, and some may happen outside the court system, like through ICE, for people with existing deportation orders, or hardline border policies.

“Instead of closing cases, or allowing cases to be decided by a judge, there’s a high possibility that they may take some of those cases and move them into deportations, so technically, the backlog could go down,” he said.

But Garciaacosta says there’s also a significant backlog for various applications through Citizenship and Immigration Services – and that’s could also increase under Trump, adding onto an already yearlong wait for some immigration pathways.

TRAC’s data shows the current caseload will take until 2028 to be resolved.