When Washington tries to fix immigration, it only gets worse

There were too many [immigration] cases for too few judges, and adding in the cases of the unaccompanied minors only made matters worse. There are currently more than 429,000 cases pending in the courts with just 223 judges. -NPR

http://www.npr.org/2015/02/23/387825094/immigration-courts-operating-in-crisis-mode-judges-say

During the Bush years, the Border Patrol went on a hiring binge, which led to more apprehensions. Immigration raids and roundups increased under Obama. But no one thought to consider the legal rights of all those extra detained persons. The population of immigration courts and lawyers remained about flat. So of course backlogs exploded, and now some individuals are given courts dates in 2019.

Recently with the Obama administration's programs like DACA/amnesty for the recent surge of unaccompanied minors from Latin America, the backlog is in upheaval, as youths are given priority status to have their cases heard first. But there are only so many immigration lawyers with expertise to handle such clients. With 60K minors being processed in the courts now, the pool of lawyers just can't serve them all in a short time window. Those overworked lawyers are already poorly compensated vs. other attorneys (or are doing it pro bono), so they just can't give any more. Therefore, over 70% of the minors will not have legal representation when their case is heard, making it highly unlikely that they will be able to stay in the US. So what was the point of those White House actions to try to help minors when the justice system can't do their part?

The Obama administration has been trying to advocate the no-brainer response of hiring more immigration judges, but of course Congress has not taken any action.