The U.S. Justice Department announced on Wednesday that its immigration courts in Georgia and across the nation will start moving to the front of the line deportation cases involving children and parents apprehended on the southwest border, hoping to resolve them more quickly.
The agency’s Executive Office for Immigration Review also plans to hire more judges to help battle the huge backlog now plaguing the nation’s immigration courts. As of the end of the June, there were about 375,000 cases pending in those courts. Some take weeks to resolve while others can take years.
On Tuesday, the White House asked Congress for $3.7 billion to help deal with the crisis on the border. Of that amount, $45.4 million would help hire about 40 additional “immigration judge teams,” including some who would be hired on a temporary basis. The money would also pay for extra courtroom capacity and video conferencing capabilities.
The government could not provide a breakdown of where the new judges would be located, but an EOIR official said it’s possible one or more could be assigned to Georgia. Nationwide, there are 243 immigration judges hearing cases. Of those, five are in Atlanta and three are based at the Stewart Detention Center in South Georgia.
The government’s announcement comes in response to a massive surge of Central American children who are fleeing poverty and violence in their countries and illegally crossing the U.S. border. The government is transferring some of them to the care of relatives in Georgia and other states, where they will remain while they undergo deportation proceedings.
EOIR confirmed Wednesday that placing their deportation cases at the front of the line could further delay cases for others who are not being detained.
“The pure non-detained docket that was in existence prior to this surge happening will face significant impact,” said Lauren Alder Reid, EOIR’s counsel for legislative and public affairs. “It is and will continue to be something of a magnitude unlike anything we have ever seen.”
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