Immigration Judges Found Under Strain

By JULIA PRESTON
Published: July 10, 2009

Surging caseloads and a chronic lack of resources to handle them are taking a toll on judges in the nation’s immigration courts, leaving them frustrated and demoralized, a new study has found.

Study Finds Immigration Courtrooms Backlogged (June 18, 2009)

The study, published in a Georgetown University law journal, applied a psychological scale for testing professional stress and exhaustion to 96 immigration court judges who agreed to participate, just under half of all judges hearing immigration cases. The survey found that the strain on them was similar to that on prison wardens and hospital physicians, groups shown in comparable studies to experience exceptionally high stress.

Surprising the researchers, 59 immigration judges wrote comments on the survey questionnaire elaborating on why they felt discouraged. In the comments, which were reported anonymously, the judges spoke of an overwhelming volume of cases with insufficient time for careful review, a shortage of law clerks and language interpreters, and failing computers and equipment for recording hearings.

“We judges have to grovel like mangy street dogsâ€