President Trump has embraced the old adage about stopping digging when you’re in a hole — at least on illegal immigration — as his sweeping improvements at the southern border have delivered the first sustained drop in the immigration court backlog in nearly 20 years.
In just over six months, Trump has reversed the trend from the Biden era, when the backlog swelled to more than 4.2 million cases before immigration judges, cutting it down to 3.8 million as of July.
While greater efficiency in the immigration courts — formally known as the Executive Office for Immigration Review — has played a role, “the real change has been the drop in new cases,” a senior Justice Department official said.
“That is entirely due to President Trump’s policies securing the border,” the official told The Washington Times. “It’s not a novel concept: enforcing the law, rather than ignoring it, really does work to reduce illegal immigration and the backlog.”
In 2024, during President Biden’s tenure, the government averaged nearly 150,000 new immigration cases per month, while judges completed fewer than 60,000 — causing the backlog to swell.
Since January, however, the courts have averaged just 29,000 new cases monthly while completing more than 65,000.
The EOIR data underscores Trump’s sweeping impact on immigration and the choices of would-be illegal migrants, who, for the first time in modern history, are largely refraining from making significant attempts to cross the border, the Times reported.
Homeland Security reported that Border Patrol agents made just 116 arrests along the entire 1,954-mile southern border on a single day last month. By contrast, in December 2023, at the height of the Biden-era surge, agents averaged more than 8,050 arrests per day, said the Times.
Andrew “Art” Arthur, a former immigration judge, noted that reducing the backlog is more than just a statistical victory. It allows newcomers to have their cases heard more quickly, ensuring that those with legitimate claims receive protections faster, while those with fraudulent cases face swifter consequences — namely, deportation. That reality, he said, is resonating abroad and discouraging many would-be migrants from attempting the journey at all.
Previously, the massive backlog gave new arrivals confidence that their cases wouldn’t be heard for years, providing ample time to work and establish roots before the U.S. ever considered removing them.
