Millions of asylum-seekers left waiting in immigration court backlog
On a Thursday in April, Venezuelan immigrants Natanel and Allisson visited immigration court in downtown Dallas to submit paperwork.
Both are seeking asylum. Although they say they have been in the United States for more than a year, Allisson's court date is still another year away, and Natanel does not yet have one.
As they wait, they have been working hard with temporary permits, Allisson said, hoping they'll be allowed to continue building their lives here.
They are just two of the millions caught in a years-long backlog. While the number of migrants crossing the United States' southern border has dropped dramatically in the past year, the country's immigration courts are left dealing with a historically high volume of cases.
There are 3.6 million immigration cases pending in the U.S., according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, or TRAC. The organization keeps data on the federal government's enforcement activities. Two million of those pending cases are asylum-seekers, including 225,000 in Dallas.
Paul Hunker, former chief counsel for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Dallas, said in an interview that the backlog is "quite extensive."
"Increased apprehensions created it, so a lot of people apprehended at the border and then released and put into removal proceedings," Hunker said. "It got worse during the Biden administration."
CBS News Texas sat in on several dockets in Dallas' immigration court, where dozens of asylum-seekers received court dates. All were scheduled for years away, most of them in 2028.
In the U.S., about 700 immigration judges are serving 71 courts. Hunker said that is not nearly enough to clear the current backlog.
"You would have to hire so many, a ludicrous number of immigration judges to get the backlog down," he said. "It hurts the integrity of the system. People who deserve relief, it could take them a very long time to get it."
TRAC data shows on average in the past five fiscal years, 56% of asylum cases have been denied. Natanel and Allisson said they will continue to wait in line and hang on to hope that their cases will be approved.
"Nos gustaría tener la puerta abierta a posibilidades de al menos tener asilo o tener un estatus de residente donde podamos estar tranquilos y seguir trabajando," Allison said.
"We would like to have the door open to possibilities of at least having asylum or have resident status where we can be calm and keep working."
