(NewsNation) — Immigration courts in the U.S. are facing multiple and systemic problems as they work to process historic numbers of migrants crossing the southern border, according to an attorney who spoke with “NewsNation Now.”
“It’s amazing how all these Band-Aids are put in place,” said attorney Renata Castro. “Like this request for hiring more judges when every practicing immigration attorney knows that this will not work.”
Instead, Castro said, it’s a series of problems that are being compounded into a seemingly unfixable system.
“Immigration courts are understaffed — we are still suffering from a pandemic backlog. Also, changes in policy from the previous administration caused an increase in people who should not be in removal proceedings clogging the immigration courts. There is also a critically low level of individuals who are represented in immigration court by immigration attorneys. It’s all just creating this vortex of chaos,” Castro said.
As immigration attorneys attempt to address the backlog of cases, proposals being discussed by the Biden administration and Senate negotiators offer little support for attorneys.
Some of those proposals include a new expulsion authority that would deny rights to seek asylum if illegal border crossings reach a certain threshold. Any such authority would almost certainly depend on Mexico’s willingness to take back non-Mexicans who enter the U.S. illegally, something it does now on a limited scale.