Immigration Courts Strained by Staffing Shortages in Enforcement Push

(UNITED STATES) The Trump administration’s rapid expansion of immigration enforcement has collided with a deep staffing crisis in the immigration courts, creating a widening gap between arrests and adjudication that former judges warn is eroding due process.

Since January 2025, the Department of Homeland Security has accelerated recruitment of deportation officers while the court system that must hear the resulting cases has shed judges and staff. As of the end of the third quarter of 2025, the United States 🇺🇸 faces a backlog of roughly 3.8 million pending immigration cases, with some tallies placing it between 3.4 and 3.5 million. The number of active immigration judges has slipped to about 685, down from around 700 earlier this year, according to internal figures cited by former officials.

Enforcement buildout: aggressive hiring and incentives

Inside Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the ambition is sweeping. The agency reports it has received more than 200,000 applications and is targeting 10,000 deportation officers by January 2026. This effort is buoyed by a major funding package supporters call the “Big Beautiful Bill,” which delivered roughly $30 billion to support the enforcement buildout.

Key recruiting incentives:
– $50,000 signing bonuses (maximum)
– Student loan repayment options
– 25% Law Enforcement Availability Pay for special agents
– Enhanced retirement benefits

According to analysis by VisaVerge.com, the pay and benefits packages are among the most generous ICE has ever offered for frontline immigration enforcement.

Speed vs. vetting: internal concerns

The hiring pace has raised alarms even among those inside enforcement ranks. ICE has:
– Stopped conducting in-person interviews before bringing new personnel on board
– Begun swearing in hires virtually, with background checks to be completed later

This mirrors rushed onboarding seen in the mid-2000s at Customs and Border Protection, when thousands attended training before full vetting. Current and former officials say these shortcuts are meant to meet aggressive staffing targets but risk quality and safety issues if unsuitable candidates slip through. The urgency also reflects political pressure to show results at the border and in the interior.

Court-system attrition and its consequences

At the same time, the adjudication side is shedding capacity. Since President Trump took office in January 2025:
– More than 100 immigration judges (about 15% of the corps) have been fired, transferred, or accepted voluntary separation
– At least 15 judges and 13 managers were removed in mid-February alone
– Many removals occurred without stated cause or prior notice, according to attorneys familiar with the actions

The Department of Justice, which oversees the immigration courts through the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR), is also grappling with a separate attrition wave:
– Losing about half its attorneys since January
– Roughly 5,500 people left in 2025 alone

These losses compound the courtroom crunch.

Case loads and delays: the human toll

The result is a docket that swells faster than it can be heard:
– Each immigration judge now carries an average of roughly 5,600 cases
– Veterans of the bench say this load is impossible to handle with care

Former immigration judge Doolittle described the daily grind: a judge can complete “a maximum of three [cases] in one day, and that’s pushing it,” with most final decisions taking 20 minutes to an hour. Even at peak output, the math does not come close to clearing the backlog.

Consequences reported by attorneys and advocates:
– Many hearings are being pushed to late 2028 or 2029
– Families remain in limbo; witnesses become harder to find as memories fade
– Children wait years for hearings, then are scheduled on short notice
– Government trial attorneys sometimes appear without time to review new evidence
– Families who complied with requirements still face repeated postponements

These delays fray trust that the system will treat people as individuals rather than numbers.

Short-term fixes: military lawyers and reduced appellate capacity

The administration has sought alternative adjudicators rather than hiring career immigration judges:
– More than 600 military lawyers have been authorized to serve as temporary immigration judges
– They operate under relaxed qualifications and participate in six-month rotations with abbreviated training
– The approach does not require prior immigration law experience

Critics, including former judge Petit, argue the rotations are too short to master asylum law, statutory bars, and country-condition analysis. She said, “Six-month rotations are not enough,” and noted the system lacks senior judges to train newcomers as it once did.

Appellate review has also narrowed:
– The Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) has been trimmed from 28 to 15 members
– Nine of the remaining members were appointed under President Biden
– Pending appeals rose from 12,685 in fiscal year 2017 to 112,952 in fiscal year 2024

Attorneys warn that fewer appellate judges plus rushed trial-level proceedings increases the chance that errors will go uncorrected—especially harmful for asylum seekers who rely on records created in hurried hearings without counsel.

Warnings from former judges and officials

Former judges have issued blunt warnings about constitutional stakes:

“We have an administration that is placing an emphasis on case completions, but we have to balance that against the constitutional right to due process that every person has in immigration court.” —Former judge Petit

Judge Briggs added:

“Denying due process to immigrants is not compassionate at all… due process is at stake, not just for immigrants but for all of us.”

Several former officials report seeing pressure on the bench to fast‑track asylum cases, with denials more than doubling under that pressure. They worry the courts are being steered toward throughput rather than fairness.

Policy trade-offs and capacity gap

Advocates describe a system pulled in two directions: an enforcement surge without matching investments in adjudication. A former judge remarked that the “Big Beautiful Bill” overwhelmingly added enforcement personnel instead of judges, widening the gap between arrests and resolutions.

Estimates and alternatives:
– Doolittle estimated the country would need an additional 2,000 to 3,000 judges to cut the backlog within two to three years
– Instead, the administration is relying on short rotations of military lawyers and a thinned appellate bench—moves critics say may boost short-term numbers while straining the long-term legitimacy of court decisions

The mismatch shows up in everyday life: people on ankle monitors or reporting schedules waiting years for decisions, school districts planning for students with unresolved status, and hospitals treating patients wary of official contact.

Stakes for immigrants, communities, and taxpayers

Different perspectives:
– Supporters: tougher enforcement and more deportation officers will deter irregular migration and restore order
– Critics: deterrence without adjudication capacity creates a paper showcase, not a functioning system

Impacts:
– For immigrants in proceedings: quicker arrests without timely hearings mean longer uncertainty
– For asylum seekers: faster denials under packed calendars can mean return to danger
– For taxpayers: billions spent on enforcement without parallel investment in judges, interpreters, and court staff risks wasted spending and unfinished justice

Institutional context and resources

The Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review oversees the courts that process these cases. The basic structures—immigration judges and the Board of Immigration Appeals—remain in place, but current conditions of understaffing, high turnover, and emergency appointments have changed daily realities in hearing rooms nationwide.

For authoritative information on the courts, see the Department of Justice’s EOIR portal: https://www.justice.gov/eoir

Looking ahead: choices and consequences

Whether the current approach endures will depend on political choices in Washington and outcomes in courtrooms across the country. For now, the imbalance is widening: more arrests and more deportation officers on one side, fewer judges and longer queues on the other.

In the words of one former judge, the system appears built “for rapid deportations but not fair hearings,” a tension that cuts to the heart of constitutional protections. The coming months will test whether leaders recalibrate—or whether the nation continues down a path where enforcement surges ahead while the courts fall further behind, and due process becomes the backlog’s most consistent casualty.