DOJ closes record number of cases in immigration court

The Department of Justice said Thursday that its immigration courts closed more than 1 million cases for the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30. Regular immigration courts closed almost 974,000 cases—the most ever recorded in a fiscal year, according to the department’s Executive Office of Immigration Review, or EOIR. Meanwhile, the Board of Immigration Appeals—essentially the Supreme Court of immigration courts—closed roughly 46,400 cases, or its highest number in two decades.

How did this increase in cases occur? EOIR brought on 300 new immigration judges in fiscal year 2026—a record number for the department. DOJ now has a total of more than 750 immigration judges on staff, according to the office’s report.

How many more cases are in the backlog? The number of pending immigration court cases sits at around 3,300,000, per EOIR numbers. Since President Donald Trump resumed office, the Justice Department has reduced the backlog of pending immigration cases by roughly 678,000.

Dig deeper: Read my report in Compassion about how the Trump administration has shaken up the means by which it helps provide unaccompanied children with lawyers in immigration court.