EOIR immigration court backlog surpasses 3.7 million pending cases

The Executive Office for Immigration Review reported a pending caseload exceeding 3.7 million cases by fall 2024, the largest in the court system's history and a quadrupling of the caseload from just five years earlier. The surge reflected record southwest border encounters during 2021-2023, an immigration judge corps of approximately 700 judges to handle cases for a country of 340 million people, and three decades of enforcement-first policy that created filings without commensurate funding for adjudication. Average wait times in some courts exceeded five years from filing to merits hearing.