CNN
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Nearly 1.6 million asylum applications are pending in U.S. immigration courts and the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service, according to an analysis of federal data by the Transaction Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University.
U.S. immigration courts saw asylum cases more than sevenfold increase from 100,000 cases pending in fiscal 2012 to more than 750,000 cases outstanding by the end of fiscal 2022, according to the Clearinghouse. Did.
“Since then, in the first two months [fiscal year] In 2023 (October-November 2022), asylum backlogs will surge past 30,000 and now total 787,882,” the Clearinghouse said.
According to the Syracuse group, asylum seekers come from 219 different countries and speak 418 different languages. About three in 10 are children under the age of 18, with major countries of origin including Guatemala, Venezuela, Cuba and Brazil, the group said. Florida and Massachusetts are among the states with the highest number of asylum applications.
The overall average waiting time for asylum hearings is about 4.3 years, according to the group, while in Omaha, Nebraska, the court with the longest delays, waiting times average 5.9 years.
About 2,000 are in ICE detention, according to the Clearinghouse, although the number of asylum seekers being monitored electronically through the Department of Homeland Security’s Alternative Detention Program is increasing.
The analysis comes amid a recent surge in immigration from Venezuela and Haiti at the US southern border.
Despite persistently cold temperatures, border patrols in the El Paso area continue to encounter 1,500 to 1,600 migrants each day, a federal law enforcement source familiar with operations on the ground told CNN.
This is down from the numbers seen a few weeks ago when we were encountering 2,500 migrants daily. Daily encounters dropped to about 1,500 per day last week, according to a statement released by the Department of Homeland Security.
Earlier this month, the city declared a state of emergency for thousands of migrants living in unsafe conditions.
Many illegal immigrants—immigrants who don’t have the proper papers to show they’ve been processed by U.S. Border Patrol—are on the streets seeking shelter during the winter storms. The same law enforcement sources also warned that human smuggling continues in the area.
El Paso’s border patrol chief, Peter Jaquez, tweeted last week that in 48 hours, agents had foiled 12 smuggling schemes and arrested 15 smugglers and 57 immigrants.
Efforts are underway in the El Paso area to transfer immigrants to other departments for processing, according to law enforcement sources. About 6,000 migrants were removed from the El Paso area for processing last week, and another 3,400 of her migrants were deported on transfer flights, CNN previously reported.
