Arizona immigration backlog continues despite federal emergency status

According to at least one Arizona lawyer, the state's immigration courts have received no relief under the federal reclassification of the state's court system as operating under a "judicial emergency."

The emergency status came in the wake of the murder of U.S. Judge John Roll, and it allows judges to delay hearing cases for up to six months, instead of the 30 days normally mandated by law.

Judge Roll was seeking emergency status for his federal judicial district before he was gunned down and killed at Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' Congress on Your Corner event in early January. Rep. Giffords signed Roll's letter to a higher court asking for the emergency status, and he attended the event to thank her in person for her support, The Wall Street Journal reported.

"Judicial resources in the District of Arizona are simply unable to keep pace with this escalating crisis at the border," he wrote in the letter. According to the Los Angeles Times, criminal cases in the district have surged 65 percent in the past two years.

Roll's shooting death finally prompted the federal judiciary to issue the declaration of judicial emergency last month.

But none of this will do anything to help the crisis in the state's immigration courts, which are separate from the federal court system and are staffed with Department of Justice-appointed judges.

"The immigration courts are backlogged behind repair," Gerald Burns, chairman of the American Immigration Lawyers Association Arizona chapter, told The Lookout. Judges rush through cases and the accused wait for months for their case to be heard in court.

According to an investigation by the Arizona Republic, the backlogs mean that Arizona immigration judges can take years to decide whether or not to deport a defendant. The suspects either spend time in detention centers, post bail and wait years for trial, or agree to leave the country voluntarily without a trial.

And the problem isn't just in the state's immigration courts; it's also flooding the federal court system. A new study found that federal immigration prosecutions shot up 71 percent in the past two years due to the Obama administration's crackdown on illegal immigration. The total number of federal criminal prosecutions fell 6 percent over the same period.

Federal courts deal with charges such as smuggling and illegal re-entry, while immigration courts pick up cases where police discover that someone they've apprehended may be in the country illegally, and transfer him or her into the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement for deportation proceedings.

Burns argues Arizona's enforcement-minded state legislature will make the problem worse if it continues to pass bills cracking down on illegal immigration.

"I think there needs to be a moratorium on these immigration bills that everybody knows are just going to protract the legal system," he said—though he noted the state's controversial SB 1070 law has not added much to the case backlog since much of it was enjoined by a federal judge. A federal program that scans local jails for illegal immigrants has helped the Obama administration deport record numbers of people the past two years.

Burns said the federal court system is also in trouble, estimating that it would need to double the number of judges to make a dent in the backlog. He also noted that the federal courts are operating under a judge shortage, since Obama has been slow to nominate federal judges, and the Senate Judicial Committee has confirmed fewer Obama nominees than it has for previous presidents.

(Judge John Roll. AP)