As federal agents continue to enforce immigration in Southern California, those arrested are in the court system in a large backlog.
Detainees who go to immigration courts to hear that a lawsuit that took a year to settle takes three to five years now take them three to five years, according to immigration attorney Ricardo Macias.
“What’s new happening now is that the government is reopening the case. Any incidents that were administratively closed during previous management are now visited and reopened,” said Macias, who has been practicing immigration law for 13 years. “We’re seeing more backlogs now. We don’t know what it will look like in the coming weeks yet.”
The Trump administration’s massive deportation plan saw immigration agents detaining a record number of people with 700 immigrant judges responsible for listening to the incident.
About 3.7 million cases have now been carried forward in US immigration courts, according to a report by TRAC, the Syracuse University data research organization.
According to Macias, there are also long delays with clients who have a visa, but it will take about three years now.
“Another type of immigration relief, U-Visa. It used to take a year, but now it takes five years,” Macias said. This is a non-immigrant visa designed to protect victims of certain crimes that have been physically or mentally abused, supporting authorities in the investigation or prosecution of such crimes.
Macias, who has handled more than 200 cases, said this could be the start of an immigration court backlog and bottleneck for the coming months.
Source link
