The nation’s immigration court backlog has ballooned to nearly 3.4 million pending cases, with average wait times stretching to almost 900 days — and the Trump administration’s decision to close the San Francisco immigration court threatens to push those numbers even higher, according to federal data and court watchers.
A System Drowning in Cases
At the end of December 2025, 3,377,998 active cases were pending before the nation’s immigration courts, according to data compiled by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University. Of those, 2.3 million involve individuals who have already filed formal asylum applications and are waiting for hearings or decisions.
The backlog represents a 12 percent surge over the previous year and the highest number ever recorded. Average wait times from initial filing to final disposition have reached approximately 900 days — nearly two and a half years. In some jurisdictions, waits of four or five years are common.
Despite the massive caseload, immigration judges have been issuing deportation orders at a brisk clip. In the first quarter of fiscal year 2026, judges completed 193,858 cases. Of the 57,531 cases decided in December 2025 alone, deportation was ordered in 79.2 percent — a rate that reflects both the administration’s enforcement priorities and the consequences of immigrants being unable to secure legal representation during years-long waits.
San Francisco Court Closure Adds Strain
In January 2026, the administration announced it would shutter the San Francisco immigration court, a move that immigration attorneys said would force thousands of pending cases to be transferred to already overburdened courts elsewhere. The closure was one of several court consolidations undertaken by the Executive Office for Immigration Review.
Immigration judges and their union have warned that the closures work at cross-purposes with the administration’s stated goal of accelerating deportations. Judges cannot issue removal orders if they do not have courtrooms in which to hear cases. The National Association of Immigration Judges has repeatedly called for the hiring of additional judges to address the backlog, noting that many existing judges carry caseloads of more than 2,000 active matters.
Due Process Concerns Mount
Legal advocates have raised alarm about what the numbers mean for individual cases. Immigration court proceedings are civil, not criminal, meaning respondents have no right to a government-appointed attorney. National data shows that roughly 60 percent of people in immigration proceedings lack legal representation, a figure that rises sharply for detained individuals.
The high deportation rate — approaching 80 percent of completed cases — partly reflects this gap. Studies have consistently found that represented immigrants are far more likely to prevail in their cases than those who appear without counsel. With cases languishing for years before reaching a hearing, witnesses move, evidence degrades, and conditions in home countries can shift dramatically.
Congressional efforts to increase funding for immigration courts have stalled. The administration’s fiscal year 2026 budget request prioritized enforcement spending over adjudication resources, allocating billions more for detention beds and border agents while leaving the court system largely flat-funded.
The combination of a record backlog, court closures, and inadequate judicial resources has created what one former immigration judge described as a system in which “the right to a hearing has become the right to wait.”
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