Immigration court backlog grows

(San Diego Union Tribune) The government shutdown over President Donald Trumps ask for border wall funding is likely increasing the immigration court backlog. While cases for people in detention centers are going ahead as scheduled those for people on the non-detained docket will be reset for new dates after the government is funded again. That means many hearings are being postponed in a system that is already clogged by more than 800000 pending cases according to the latest data from the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse out of Syracuse University. San Diegos non-detained docket has well over 4000 cases pending. While case loads during the shutdown so far have been lighter because of the holidays many more cases will be impacted if the closure continues into next week according to Houston-based attorney Ruby Powers. Thats when its going to get really bad" Powers said. Because attorneys dont know when the shutdown will end or how cases will be prioritized for rescheduling theres a lot of uncertainty for clients with upcoming court dates Powers said. Some of the hearings that will need to be rescheduled are from the master calendar." Those hearings are used to provide people in proceedings with information submit paperwork and schedule other hearings known as merits hearings" which are more like trials.