Congress for years backed additional immigration judges to address a yearslong backlog of deportation and asylum cases, but the sharply different views of two of the newest members of the Senate Homeland Security panel show a consensus on that approach has fractured.
Sen. Andy Kim, D-N.J., said in an interview about joining the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee there are more than 3 million pending cases and only about 680 immigration judges who “would not be able to get through that backlog in a decade.”
Kim said he brought up the strategy of adding more immigration judges with Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem prior to her confirmation to “try to get a sense of whether or not we can keep that on the table as something that we can engage on.”
