Immigration Court Backlog Falls Below 3.5 Million as 40% of Judges Turn Over and Asylum Grants Hit a Record Low

In June 2026, US immigration judges granted asylum in 5.5% of the cases they decided, 771 people. They denied 94.1%. At the end of the Biden administration the grant rate was about 32%. The figures come from TRAC, the Syracuse University project that tracks immigration court data.

The immigration courts, run by the Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review, have changed more in eighteen months than in the previous decade. The backlog is shrinking, the bench has been largely replaced, and the outcomes have shifted sharply.

The backlog

EOIR said in May 2026 that pending cases had fallen from about 4 million to under 3.53 million since January 2025, a drop of more than 447,000, with more than 1.08 million cases completed in that time. By the end of June the backlog was below 3.5 million, according to an analysis of EOIR data by the Center for Immigration Studies. Courts completed just under 799,000 cases in fiscal 2025 and more than 660,000 in the first three quarters of fiscal 2026.

The peak is disputed. Different counts of EOIR data put it somewhere between 3.7 million and more than 3.9 million at the end of fiscal 2024. What isn’t disputed is the direction: for the first time in years, cases are being closed faster than they’re filed.

The bench

The judges deciding those cases are largely new. There were about 735 immigration judges at the end of fiscal 2024. TRAC counts 279 who were fired or resigned in fiscal 2025 and 2026, about 38% of that bench. EOIR hired a record 153 permanent judges in fiscal 2026 through May and says the corps is now nearly 700. TRAC found that of the 743 judges who decided asylum cases in fiscal 2026, only 322 had served before January 2025.

Some of the new judges are military lawyers. In September 2025 the Defense Secretary approved up to 600 military attorneys to serve as temporary immigration judges. The first 25 began hearing cases in November 2025. In their early rulings they ordered removal in about 78% of cases, against 63% for other judges, according to Bloomberg Government.

What drives the outcomes

Immigration judges aren’t independent in the way federal judges are. They’re Justice Department employees, hired and supervised by the Attorney General, and bound by the Attorney General’s precedent decisions. That design lets an administration change outcomes quickly through hiring, firing and legal guidance, without new legislation.

Most democracies handle asylum appeals through bodies with more structural independence. Britain’s immigration tribunals sit within the courts system. Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Board is an independent tribunal. Proposals to make US immigration courts independent of the Justice Department have been introduced in Congress for years without passing.

What to watch

A falling backlog means faster decisions, which both sides of the immigration debate have said they want. A collapsing grant rate means those decisions are going overwhelmingly one way. Appeals to the Board of Immigration Appeals and the federal circuit courts will show whether the new outcomes hold up, and that will take years.