In this current era of mass migration, immigration courts are unprecedentedly overwhelmed. Housed under the Department of Justice’s Executive Office for Immigration Review, these administrative courts are presided over by appointed immigration judges. Today’s immigration courts are primarily hearing claims for humanitarian relief, and they are doing so at an unsustainable pace.

Every day, these courts are home to a relentless flood of litigation between attorneys for the Department of Homeland Security who act as “prosecutors” pushing for removal, and noncitizens seeking to prevent their removal from the United States, many times expressing a fear of some sort of severe trauma or harm if they were to be sent back to their countries of origin.