New fast-track docket for migrants faces familiar challenges
The average time for U.S. immigration cases to be resolved is nearly four years. But that’s not the mandate in Francisco Prieto’s courtroom.
The New York judge must attempt to rule within 300 days on dozens of cases he hears daily from families that just entered the country. The migrants are being sent to the front of the line with the idea that others will be less likely to migrate knowing a backlog of more than 1.4 million cases will no longer buy them a few years in the United States even if they lose.
Nearly six months ago, the Biden administration established a “dedicated docket” for families, many seeking asylum, in Prieto’s city and 10 others, including Boston, San Francisco, Miami and El Paso, Texas. It is a modest step aimed at bringing order to the southern border, where authorities this year have faced unusually high numbers of migrant arrivals, including nearly 15,000, mostly Haitians, who camped under a bridge in the small border town of Del Rio, Texas, in September.