Immigration Court Backlogs: Why Cases Take Years to Resolve

The US immigration court backlog runs to 2.8 million pending cases across 76 courts in DOJ EOIR data. What causes the backlog, how it affects respondents, and which courts have the longest wait times.

The Scale of the Problem

According to US Department of Justice, Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) FOIA case data (snapshot March 2026), the US immigration court system faces a structural capacity crisis. Across the 76 courts, roughly 2,826,869 proceedings are pending, open and not yet decided. New case filings have outpaced resolutions for years, so the backlog accumulates faster than courts can clear it. Average time to a decision now exceeds two years in many jurisdictions, and reaches 46.5 months at Los Angeles - West Immigration Court. See our methodology for how pending-case counts are computed.

Even during periods when EOIR added judges, the rate of new case filings outpaced the additional capacity. The result is a system where respondents may wait years for their day in court, during which their lives remain in legal limbo.

Impact on Respondents

Prolonged backlogs have concrete effects on the people in the system. Non-detained respondents may wait years while building lives in the US, finding jobs, enrolling children in school, forming community ties, only to face removal proceedings years later. Detained respondents may spend months or years in immigration detention facilities awaiting their hearings. Witnesses become unavailable, evidence degrades, and country conditions that were the basis for a claim may change dramatically during multi-year waits.

Which Courts Are Most Affected

PlainImmigration tracks backlog data by court. The courts carrying the largest backlogs are concentrated in major metropolitan areas, led by Miami Immigration Court at 263,256 pending proceedings. The geographic distribution of cases across courts is shaped by where immigrants live, where they are apprehended, and where detention facilities are located. The full ranking is in the table below.

Efforts to Reduce the Backlog

Various strategies have been attempted to address the backlog: hiring more immigration judges, creating dedicated dockets for specific case types, using video teleconference hearings to increase throughput, and administratively closing lower-priority cases to focus on others. The effectiveness of these measures has been debated, and no single intervention has reversed the growth trend. Structural reforms, such as establishing immigration courts as independent from the DOJ, have been proposed but not enacted.

What Drives the Backlog

Insufficient Judicial Capacity

The number of new cases entering the system each year consistently exceeds the number that judges can resolve, producing a deficit that compounds year over year. Adding judges helps at the margin, but the gap between filings and dispositions has kept the pending count growing for over a decade.

Policy Shifts and New Case Categories

Changes in immigration enforcement priorities can create sudden surges in case filings. The Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), also known as "Remain in Mexico," diverted thousands of cases into specific courts along the southern border. When policies change, cases may need to be recalendared, reassigned, or reopened, adding administrative overhead to already strained dockets.

Continuances and Procedural Delays

Both respondents and the government frequently request continuances, delays in hearing dates. Respondents may need time to secure legal representation or gather evidence. The government may request additional time for background checks or document review. Each continuance pushes a case further back in an already lengthy queue.

Backlog by Court Type

Non-Detained vs. Detained Dockets

The immigration court system operates two parallel dockets. Detained cases, where the respondent is in immigration custody, are prioritized and generally resolved faster, often within months. Non-detained cases, where the respondent is not in custody, comprise the vast majority of the backlog and face multi-year wait times. This two-track system means that the most severe delays are concentrated among non-detained respondents.

Courts With the Largest Backlogs

The table below ranks the 12 courts with the most pending proceedings in DOJ EOIR FOIA data, with each court's average months to a decision and its asylum grant rate alongside. The backlog (an operational measure) and the asylum grant rate (a merits measure) are separate dimensions and do not track each other.

Court	Pending Cases	Avg Wait (months)	Asylum Grant Rate
Miami Immigration Court	263,256	29.8	35.7%
New York - Federal Plaza Immigration Court	207,674	39.2	74.9%
Newark Immigration Court	200,323	38.6	49.9%
Chicago Immigration Court	192,179	27.1	61.5%
Orlando Immigration Court	181,388	29.9	47.5%
Dallas Immigration Court	157,623	31.7	46.4%
Charlotte Immigration Court	112,726	33.7	34.6%
Atlanta - W. Peachtree Street Immigration Court	110,395	32.2	38.4%
Memphis Immigration Court	108,469	31.4	40.3%
San Francisco Immigration Court	104,890	39.7	72.2%
San Antonio Immigration Court	87,096	34.9	54.7%
Boston Immigration Court	77,847	38.8	53.8%

Source: DOJ EOIR FOIA case data. Pending cases are open proceedings; average wait is months to a decision; the asylum grant rate covers asylum (I-589) cases decided on the merits, FY2015–2025.

Rural and Small Courts

Smaller courts with fewer judges can face disproportionately long backlogs relative to their caseload. A court with few judges handling thousands of pending cases faces the same structural constraints as a major metropolitan court, but with fewer resources to manage administrative overhead. Some respondents in rural areas must travel long distances to attend hearings, adding practical barriers to an already slow process.

Frequently Asked Questions

How large is the immigration court backlog?

Across the 76 immigration courts in DOJ EOIR FOIA case data, there are about 2,826,869 pending (open, undecided) proceedings. The backlog has grown over more than a decade as new case filings consistently outpace the number of cases resolved. Average time to a decision exceeds two years in many courts.

Which courts have the longest backlogs?

In this dataset, Miami Immigration Court carries the largest pending backlog, at 263,256 open proceedings. Courts in large metropolitan areas generally hold the biggest backlogs because that is where the most cases are filed; the longest average wait to a decision in the data is 46.5 months at Los Angeles - West Immigration Court.

What causes the backlog?

The primary cause is structural: the number of new cases filed each year consistently exceeds the system's capacity to resolve cases. Contributing factors include the number of immigration judges available, increasing case complexity, policy changes that create new case categories, attorney continuance requests, government continuance requests, and administrative processing delays.