US Immigration Offices Overwhelmed: Some Asylum-Seekers May Wait a Decade for Court Date
The US immigration system is facing long delays, with some asylum-seeking migrants who crossed through Mexico likely having to wait a decade before they can even get an appointment to appear before a judge. The delays stem from a change implemented two months after President Joe Biden took office, when Border Patrol agents began the long-abandoned practice of releasing immigrants quickly, on parole.
The change prevented overcrowding in docking centers as occurred in 2019, but the cost became evident when the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Service (ICE) officers designated to deliver the court summons could not keep up. As a result, some of the offices now tell migrants to return several years from now, and the work has reduced ICE’s ability to fulfill its traditional mission of enforcing immigration laws inside the United States.
“Asylum system urgently needs top-down reform,” said Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas. Johnson, acting director of ICE, told lawmakers that the agency wants to use online interviews to reduce 10-year waits and that it wants authority from Congress to issue electronic appointments. He added that increased funding would also go a long way to quickly clear the backlog of cases.
The delays are affecting different cities differently. In New York, ICE has instructed asylum seekers to return by March 2033, while in nine other cities—San Antonio, Miramar, Florida, Los Angeles, Jacksonville, Florida, Milwaukee, Chicago, Washington, Denver, and Mount Laurel, New Jersey—the wait is until March 2027.
Until then, the migrants in question will not even receive a court date, although they can live and work in the United States. After that, their cases will be processed by the immigration courts, a process that takes about four years and which in January suffered a backlog of 2.1 million cases, compared with 600,000 in 2017.
