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11/24/2003 Entry: "Immigration administrative agency appeals filed in federal court jump 400%"
In a 12-month period, the number of immigration administrative agency appeals filed in federal court jumped by nearly 400 percent
Immigration chart showing growing number of appeals since October 2001
>
>In a 12-month period, the number of immigration administrative agency
>appeals filed in federal court jumped by nearly 400 percent. Why?
>
>Immigration administrative agency appeals are at the end of a lengthy
>legal process. A defendant whose case has been prosecuted by the
>Immigration and Naturalization Service, heard by immigration judges, and
>appealed to the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA), may file an appeal
>with the federal courts.
>
>In the 12-month period ending March 2003, filings of immigration
>administrative agency appeals soared 379 percent to 8,446 appeals.
>
>The beginning of that increase in immigration appeals cases filed in the
>courts of appeals can be tracked to a specific event. On February 6,
>2002, Attorney General John Ashcroft pledged at a news conference that
>the Department of Justice would enforce immigration laws and clear the
>backlog of 56,000 cases at the BIA by April 2003.
>
>Almost immediately, BIA doubled production, sending a deluge of
>petitions for review into the U.S. courts of appeals by petitioners
>whose deportations are generally stayed pending the completion of
>federal court action. Total administrative agency appeals of BIA
>decisions filed monthly in the 12 regional courts of appeals increased
>48 percent in March 2002 and 73 percent in April 2002.
>
>By February 2003, a year later, monthly filings of these appeals had
>grown 357 percent over the number reported in February 2002. Although
>all circuits showed increases, the Ninth and Second Circuits experienced
>the largest portion of these appeals.
>
>In the Ninth Circuit, monthly filings surged 385 percent between
>February 2002 and February 2003; the Second Circuit experienced a 781
>percent increase during the same period.
>
>A backlog of cases developed in the courts when delivery of certified
>records, required to review cases in the courts of appeals, was
>significantly delayed. As a result, from February 2002 to 2003, appeals
>related to BIA decisions that were closed monthly only increased 76
>percent, while appeals filed monthly during that time increased 357
>percent.
>
>In collaboration, staff from the courts, the Administrative Office and
>DOJ have implemented measures to expedite certified record production
>and facilitate early review of jurisdictional issues by the courts.
>Increased use of e-mail for routine correspondence, court access to
>on-line BIA decisions and expedited priority record production have all
>been implemented. DOJ also has recently added contract staff to produce
>the records and has supplemented the legal staff in the Office of
>Immigration Litigation. The federal courts experiencing the increased
>caseload face an additional problem; current funding does not allow for
>additional staffing to meet the new workload.
>
>Meanwhile, BIA met Attorney General Ashcroft's mandate and cleared its
>backlog. In addition, Ashcroft implemented new processing timeframes for
>the BIA, and its monthly production is up about 30 percent. The result
>is that the court caseload in immigration appeals is not expected to
>fall back to pre-2002 levels anytime soon. In fact, the most recent data
>available show there were 8,794 immigration administrative agency
>appeals filed for the 12 months ending June 30, 2003.
>>
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