Veasey Introduces Legislation to Address Immigration Judge Shortage

Washington, D.C. –Today,Congressman Marc Veasey introduced H.R. 6456, End the Backlog Act, which would address the immigration judge shortage by freezing funding for Customs and Border Protection and Immigrations and Customs Enforcement until the funding for the immigration court system is increased.

“For years, Republicans in Congress have drastically increased funding for border security without keeping pace with the needs of immigration courts. A shortage of immigration judges not only creates a backlog of cases but also keeps immigrant families in legal limbo,” Congressman Veasey said. “Currently, immigration judges are overworked but must still handle complicated and delicate cases that have life changing consequences. My bill will ensure that we don’t keep spending money on border enforcement without thinking about how it affects immigrants and their families down the pipeline.”

According to the Migration Policy Institute, since 2002, funding for border and immigration enforcement has increased fourfold to $19 billion in comparison to the resources allocated during the same time period to support the Executive Office of Immigration Review (EOIR), the office that is responsible for processing immigration cases. As a result, the EOIR recently reported an all-time high of 521,676 pending immigration cases and shared that the average case was resolved in 604 days. Overburdened judges have reported being forced to dedicate an extremely limited amount of time reviewing often incredibly complex cases with some judges reporting they now spend an average seven minutes to decide a case.

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