Immigration Crackdown: A look at the overburdened Philadelphia Immigration Court

A look at how the Feds' immigration crackdown is overwhelming immigration courts and their judges.

Asylum Philadelphia: A look at the overburdened Philadelphia Immigration Court | Philadelphia Daily News | 01/12/2011: "(Some) cases provide a glimpse into the highly emotional issues often brought before the overburdened Philadelphia Immigration Court, where applicants can remain in limbo for years and where the number of cases pending before just three judges skyrocketed to 4,573 in fiscal year 2010 - a 20 percent increase from the previous year.

It was the court's highest number of pending cases since at least 1998, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), a data-research center at Syracuse University - and possibly its highest number ever.

And it's not just traumatic for applicants. The judges themselves, because of the number and nature of the cases, "suffer from significant symptoms of secondary traumatic stress and more burnout" than prison wardens or physicians, according to a nationwide survey by the University of California, San Francisco.

Last month, immigration lawyer Steven Morley was added to the Philadelphia court as its fourth judge,... but observers wonder whether the extra staffing will be enough to bear the burden triggered in large part by the Department of Homeland Security.

"I'm not even sure the fourth judge is going to make much of a difference, because enforcement [by Homeland Security] is cranking up, is still running full-tilt," said James Orlow, a veteran immigration lawyer in Philadelphia and past president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

Even with more judges being sworn in, immigration judges nationwide "are still in a crisis phase," said Judge Dana Marks, of San Francisco, president of the National Association of Immigration Judges."