Immigration Courts and Judges: Understanding the System Behind America’s Immigration Crisis

Immigration courts are frequently in the headlines, with stories about massive backlogs, judicial turnover, and widely varying asylum approval rates. But how does the immigration court system actually work, and why has it become one of the biggest bottlenecks in immigration enforcement?

In the latest episode of the Center for Immigration Studies’ Parsing Immigration Policy podcast, Fellow in Law and Policy Andrew Arthur, a former immigration judge, provides a comprehensive tutorial on the immigration court system, explaining its history, structure, and the challenges it faces.

Arthur discusses:

• Why immigration judges are Department of Justice attorneys—not life-tenured Article III judges—and how the immigration courts and Board of Immigration Appeals are organized.
• How removal proceedings work and why a final removal order is required before most aliens in the interior can be deported.
• How the surge in immigration cases during the Biden administration drove the court backlog to historic levels.
• Why the Biden-driven backlog is beginning to decline as the border and ports become more secure and immigration court case completions reach record levels.
• Whether hiring more immigration judges alone can solve the problem.
• Why asylum grant rates differ among judges and courts, and what those statistics do—and do not—show.
• Pending Supreme Court cases that could reshape immigration detention and court procedures.

In closing, Mark Krikorian acknowledges the contributions to immigration policy of two recently deceased: Senator Lindsey Graham and Norm Matloff, professor at the University of California, Davis.

Host

Mark Krikorian is the Executive Director of the Center for Immigration Studies.

Guest

Andrew Arthur is the Fellow in Law and Policy at the Center for Immigration Studies.

Links

Sen. Lindsey Graham’s Unique Immigration Legacy

DOJ: Immigration Court Asylum Grants Plummet

Federal Judge Vacates Biden Administration ‘Quiet Amnesty’ Rule

DOJ Tweets About Decline in Immigration Court Backlog — but Where Are the Stats?

Norm Matloff's Publications for CIS

Intro Montage

Voices in the opening montage:

• Sen. Barack Obama at a 2005 press conference.
• Sen. John McCain in a 2010 election ad.
• President Lyndon Johnson, upon signing the 1965 Immigration Act.
• Booker T. Washington, reading in 1908 from his 1895 Atlanta Exposition speech.
• Laraine Newman as a "Conehead" on SNL in 1977.
• Hillary Clinton in a 2003 radio interview.
• Cesar Chavez in a 1974 interview.
• House Speaker Nancy Pelosi speaking to reporters in 2019.
• Prof. George Borjas in a 2016 C-SPAN appearance.
• Sen. Jeff Sessions in 2008 comments on the Senate floor.
• Candidate Trump in 2015 campaign speech.
• Charlton Heston in "Planet of the Apes".