AP: Immigration Court Backup Tops 400,000 cases

With more than 75,000 new cases over the past 12 months, the backlog of pending deportation cases in federal immigration courts has topped 400,000, reports the Associated Press. Citing an analysis released by the Transactional Records Access Clearing, or TRAC, at Syracuse University.

The AP offers some background that “… the large and growing court backlog has led to yearslong waits for immigration cases to be completed. Earlier this year, the Justice Department announced plans to move cases of unaccompanied immigrant children to the top of the docket.” That “rocket docket” approach is under legal challenge by civil rights groups, as is the practice of not providing legal representation to those children facing deportation.