House Democrats held hearings last week over whether immigration courts should be independent. Right now, immigration courts are part of the Department of Justice, and that leads many people to believe that they are therefore too political.
The hearing was conducted by the House Judiciary Committee’s immigration panel and included testimony from current and former immigration judges. The hearing was especially timely since immigration courts were just in the news due to a report that found there are nearly 1.6 million cases in immigration court.
This backlog of immigration court cases is getting worse too. It has grown by more than 17%, or approximately 250,000 cases, since June 2021. Furthermore, reports also show that the backlog has grown by nearly 24 percent since December 2020.
How do we fix our immigration courts? How do reduce the backlog of cases and also ensure that fair hearings are being conducted? Like most discussions with immigration, there are a lot of different opinions.
There is a strong belief that there is an inherent conflict by making immigration courts part of the U.S. Department of Justice. The argument is that it is impossible for immigration judges to be neutral arbitrators when their boss, the U.S. Attorney General, is the political head of a law enforcement agency. Many people believe the solution to this problem is to make the immigration courts independent, similarly to how other courts in the U.S. operate.
An independent immigration court system has been discussed for years by lawmakers. In fact, committees led by both Republicans and Democrats have previously held meetings on this topic without any major changes. Immigration advocates are hoping that now will be the time that we see meaningful change to our immigration court system.
