Immigration courts ill-funded

Dallas Morning News: To hear hard-liners tell it, this nation’s immigration problem boils down to one issue: border security. Fix it, and everything else will fall into place. In reality, if they were to divert every dollar in President Barack Obama’s proposed $4 trillion budget for border security, America’s immigration problem would remain only half-solved.

Increased border security helps deter new migrants from entering and helps boost the number of apprehensions of those who do cross. But once in U.S. custody, though, they join the hundreds of thousands already awaiting court hearings to determine whether they merit deportation. An appalling backlog in the nation’s immigration courts is why border security alone can’t solve the problem. According to recent reports, thousands of unauthorized migrants are being told they must wait until 2019 before their day in court arrives.

The backlog is one that Congress has failed repeatedly to address, regardless of which party is in control. Adequate court funding is the only way to clear this horrendous backlog.