WASHINGTON— Today, Congressman Henry Cuellar (TX-28) successfully included language in the Fiscal Year 2018 Omnibus Appropriations Act to hire at least 100 new immigration judge teams, which includes judges, support staff, technology and work space, along with many other border security measures he included in the legislation, which recently passed the House of Representatives and would fund the government for the rest of the 2018 fiscal year. The total amount equals to 484 immigration judges.

“I want to give special thanks to my fellow Appropriators and Appropriations Commerce, Justice, Science Subcommittee Chairman John Culberson, for all of their support on this issue and working with me to include these necessary judges,” said Congressman Cuellar. “I would also like to thank Appropriations Commerce Subcommittee Ranking Member Serrano, Appropriations Chairman Rodney Frelinghuysen, and Ranking Member Nita Lowey for all their continued support and hard work as well.”

“Increasing the number of judges to process immigration cases is a common sense solution that should appeal to everyone, no matter how you feel about immigration policy,” explained Congressman Cuellar. “With a backlog of about 667,000 pending cases, almost half of which are asylum claims, our immigration courts are in dire need of additional judges to expeditiously adjudicate these cases.”

In addition to the increase in judges, there is language in the bill directing these judges to border regions with the highest workloads. For years, Congressman Cuellar has made it a priority to get Immigration Judges into border communities.
Cuellar continued, “Currently, due in part to the lack of available judges, immigrants at the border are either detained for long periods of time or released into the United States with a promise to return at a later court date. Neither of those is a good option for the immigrants or the enforcement of our laws. Having more judges at the border will help treat immigrants more fairly.”

In addition to the new judges, the bill also reiterates language included in the FY17 Omnibus calling on EOIR to address delays that let immigration review cases drag on for years. It includes $35,000,000 for Justice Information Sharing Technology and $504,500,000 for the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) with the purpose of accelerating the hiring process for new judges. More specifically, the bill sets a goal for immigration cases to be processed in 60 days if an individual is detained, and in 365 days if the individual is not detained. Currently, the median length for these cases is 71 days and 665 days respectively. Similarly, the bill continues enhancements provided in FY17 to improve EOIR information technology systems and for courtroom space and infrastructure.
These 100 judge teams come on the heels of 10 new judges Congressman Cuellar helped add in the FY17 Omnibus Appropriations Bill which passed Congress in May 2017. The Congressman was also successful in including 55 judges in the FY16 Appropriations bill, bringing the total to nearly 165 new judges in just three years.

See attachment here.