Immigration cases piling up for years

[babylonsister]

Immigration cases piling up for years

By Brad Heath
USA TODAY


WASHINGTON The nation's immigration courts are now so clogged that nearly 90,000 people accused of being in the United States illegally waited at least two years for a judge to decide whether they must leave, one of the last bottlenecks in a push to more strictly enforce immigration laws.

Their cases, identified by a USA TODAY review of the courts' dockets since 2003, are emblematic of delays in the little-known court system that lawyers and lawmakers say is on the verge of being overwhelmed. Among them were 14,000 immigrants whose cases took more than five years to decide and a few that took more than a decade.

"It's an indication that they just don't have enough resources," says Kerri Sherlock Talbot of the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

Some immigration courts are now so backlogged that just putting a case on a judge's calendar can take more than a year, says Dana Marks, an immigration judge in San Francisco and president of the National Association of Immigration Judges.

"You could have a case that would take an hour (to hear), but I can't give you that hour of time for 14 months," Marks says. In extreme cases, immigrants can remain locked up while their cases are delayed. More often, Marks says, delays mean immigrants struggle to work and live in the country until they find out whether they will be removed.

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http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20090330/immigcourts30_st.art.htm?loc=interstitialskip

[pnutbutr]

1. How bout this?

Every time an illegal immigrant is picked up for reasons not related to crimes by law enforcement hand them paperwork necessary to gain citizenship, release and schedule the court date for whenever you can. If they have not actively been working toward or attained citizenship by the time of their court date, deport. If they fail to show at their court date, deport. If they get picked up for a non-violent crime, deport. No more of this holding them in jail for years at taxpayer expense.