Immigration Judge Case Backlog Up Despite Quotas, Union Says

Federal immigration judges are facing a case backlog that’s reached about 1 million cases while being “monitored and micromanaged” in a way that’s getting in the way of independent decision-making, the president of the judges’ union said.

The backlog, which the union said in April was at 850,000 cases, is growing even though the Department of Justice is hiring new immigration judges at a rapid clip and imposing work quotas on the judges to close a minimum of 700 cases each per year, said Ashley Tabaddor, president of the National Association of Immigration Judges, an AFL-CIO affiliate that represents about ...