For asylum seekers, giant US immigration backlog can be a boon

economictimes.indiatimes.com:

The approximately 650 immigration judges carry a backlog of more than 2.4 million cases, according to Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), an organization at Syracuse University. «We're facing a truly daunting volume,» said David L. Neal, director of the US Department of Justice's Executive Office for Immigration Review, during a colloquium.

Last year, 313,000 cases were terminated but the Department of Homeland Security filed 700,000 new ones, «more than twice what we could complete,» he said. Asylum seekers, who account for 40 percent of the courts' caseload, wait an average of four years to get their first court hearing, according to the Migration Policy Institute (MPI) think tank. And even more years for the case to be adjudicated.

This opens a window for them to work in the country, save and send money home to their families. «It is clear that the length of time it is now taking to get through the immigration court process has become a significant pull factor that is driving migration throughout the region,» Blas Nunez-Neto, assistant secretary for border and immigration policy at the Department of Homeland Security, told the colloquium, which was hosted by MPI. — 'Fair' and 'efficient' — Migrants coming from Latin America and elsewhere pay human smuggling gangs up to $15,000 to get across the border.

They do so because, according to Nunez-Neto, «once they're in the immigration court system and they have filed the requisite paperwork, they are eligible for employment authorization.» «We are… seeing the court system essentially become a proxy and legal pathway for people to come to the United States,» he added. At one time, most migrants were Mexican, of whom a limited number sought asylum. But now