Trump's border policies are reducing massive immigration court backlog, data reveals

WASHINGTON, DC: President Trump's strengthened border enforcement has led to federal judges closing more immigration cases than they open, a first since 2008.

Preliminary numbers indicate that this shift is beginning to cut into the massive backlog of almost 3.9 million pending immigration cases during the Biden administration.

Backlog of cases declined in Trump's administration

According to Justice Department data, the backlog of active cases has reduced by more than 87,000 through the third quarter of 2025 under President Trump. 

Immigration judges have finished nearly 588,000 pending cases to date, significantly outnumbering the 448,000 new cases received by them.

Data from Syracuse University's Transaction Records Access Clearinghouse, known as TRAC, confirms this decline. Former immigration judge and resident fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies Andrew R. Arthur told the New York Post, "This is the first time it's happened in 17 years."

He said that the backlog had grown steadily, “particularly during the Biden years, as people were released at the border and given notices to appear in immigration court, which just expanded the immigration court backlog.”

Under former President Joe Biden, the country faced one of its largest immigration influxes, with a yearly average of 2.4 million immigrants pouring into the US between 2021 and 2024-about 60% of whom crossed illegally, according to analyses.

Arthur noted, “The Biden numbers would be a whole lot worse than they are if they hadn’t terminated, dismissed and closed 700,000 cases,” but said the Biden administration’s moves didn’t necessarily remove the migrants from the system, adding, “those aliens are still out there. If they didn’t have status then, they don’t have status now.”'

Migrant no-shows assist Trump in reducing backlogged cases

In addition to sealing the southern border, Trump's administration has moved to add immigration judges from the Department of War, and Attorney General Pam Bondi has implemented policies that “enable judges to hear asylum cases a lot more quickly.”

Asylum cases make up more than half of the immigration court backlog. A significant number of cases completed under Trump are “in absentia orders of removal,” meaning cases are being closed because migrants “aren’t showing up in court.”

Arthur suggests this is because migrants who crossed the border illegally under Biden, were issued notices to appear, but “never intended to come to court.”

This is happening even when there are fewer immigration judges now, which is 635 for the third quarter of 2025, versus 735 at the end of 2024.

Arthur said he doesn't "want to call it a game changer," but he believes "so long as the Trump administration can keep the border numbers low and so long as they can start to get more judges onboarded and crank the number of orders, the more that the backlog is going to decline."

Andrew R Arthur says Trump money will expand courts, speed up case orders

Included in President Trump's ‘Big, Beautiful Bill' is over $170 billion for border security and enforcement, with $3.3 billion allocated for immigration courts and judges.

Arthur believes this money "will go to expanding immigration judge hiring, expanding the number of courts, putting more courts down at the border so the cases can be heard more quickly," which should further ease the backlog over time.

He also mentioned that Trump's ramp-up in enforcement operations, detaining migrants allows cases to be adjudicated faster.

Arthur said, “The difference between detained cases and the non-detained cases is significant,” where he explained, “Generally, a detained case can be heard in a couple of months tops but a non-detained case can go on for a couple of years to 10 years.”

Among the migrants, those who have legitimate asylum claims will benefit most from a quicker resolution.

As Arthur explained, "The more quickly that they can get into court and get an order, the more quickly their cases are done," which allows victims of legitimate persecution to "immediately petition" to get their family members out of harm's way once asylum is granted. He concluded, "Everything is better in immigration when cases are done quickly."