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infrastructure for those who need it e most. >> charter communications supports c-span as a public service, giving people a front row seat to democracy. he is with syracuse university. he serves as a research assistant professor here to talk about immigration, the courts, and the backlog there. thank you for your time. guest: glad to be with you. host: a little bit about the clearinghouse. can you tell us about how it was developed and how it particularly provides information in immigration related matters? guest: her. it has been around for 30 years. we believe the american people deserve to know how the government is operating on an that's on a daily basis -- operating on a daily basis so we get information and make that available to the public. as a researcher myself, one of

our main areas is immigration so we get more immigration data than anyone else in the country and make that available to the public online and through analysis. host: when it comes to how the clearinghouse is funded, can you explain a little bit about that? guest: sure. as a research institute, we are primarily funded through research grants. host: so the topic of immigration. one of the things you are clearinghouse looked at is the backlog of cases. can you explain how that fits into the larger immigration discussion? guest: certainly. so there is currently about 3.2 million pending cases in the immigration court system. the immigration court system is just one part of the larger immigration system. the cases that come into the court are typically people who right now anyway are arriving at the southern border and seeking asylum. maybe they entered unlawfully. maybe they entered and other

forms of entry. or in some cases, they may have been in the country for a long time, 10, 20 years, or more without documentation and are now facing deportation in the court. that backlog rose to 3.2 million cases as of the end of december. it represents a massive workload increased the immigration courts and immigration judges. host: we saw pretty much the same amount of cases according to your analysis in the charts that were provided. it starts rising in 2021 when it comes to the backlog in court. it flatlined again, and then you see the increase in 2023. can you explain why these ebbs and flows happen? guest: certainly. historically, the immigration court has processed cases for people who have been in the country for a long time. when i got into this work 15 years ago, asylum was relatively rare in the immigration court in terms of the total number of people who were facing deportation.

but that has risen dramatically the last 10 years because of economic and political situations. largely latin america and the caribbean but we have seen large numbers of ukrainian and russian and afghan people in the ignition courts too. one thing that is important to understand about this growth, the immigration courts really focus on people the government is trying to deport. the immigration court happens to be the place where people can request asylum if they recently arrived to the country. so we have a separate system to make decisions about whether or not someone deserves to file outside of the court system but because of the way the structure is set up, it may be unusual or counterintuitive but the vast majority of people facing deportation now are actually asylum-seekers. so we currently know that about a third of them in the 3 million cases, more than one million of those cases currently have pending asylum claims in the

immigration court system. about a third of all people facing deportation right now are under the age of 18 so a lot of young people, a lot of children and also families. of immigration court system is the venue where people have a chance to request safety if they are fleeing instability. host: when you talk about immigration courts themselves, how does it work when someone appears before the court to request asylum or other things? what is the process? guest: sure. it works much like a court you have seen in other similar criminal courts. the judge is dressed in judicial robes. there is opposing counsel, which is an attorney for immigration and customs enforcement, ice. they are most known probably for local immigration enforcement. they also run a detention system, unlike border patrol, which primarily does border enforcement and typically transfers people they arrest into the detention system. oftentimes, those individuals

end up in court. when does it do -- when those individuals get to court, if the request asylum and have adequate legal support eventually lodge and file an asylum application. they are very complex and demanding in terms of resources and time and research to file an adequate one. many individuals who would like to request asylum are not able to because they may not have the resources. but for those who do, they file them with the court and there is eventually a merit hearing or individual hearing where the individual will have a chance to make their case in front of a judge. the opposing counsel, the ice attorney, may more or less agree with the asylum seeker that their claim is meritorious. most often they will make some sort of opposing case or try to verify or validate the case being defended and the judge will eventually make a decision.

currently, about half of all asylum cases that are decided on their merit are approved and about half are denied. that is a number that fluctuates over time. host: does the judge in these cases have to have a specific background in immigration related issues? guest: they are not required to end the courts and judges themselves really don't have full judicial independence to negotiate with the federal court system. they exist under the department of justice, so there are some issues with independence that has been a long-standing concern. historically, they have not been required to even have any immigration law background. and even today there are judges on the bench who before they became an immigration judge may be a municipal judge in a local court or practice law in some other area of law because they were hired and appointed by the department of justice. but by and large, the vast majority of people appointed to the bench these days have immigration experience. host: for someone who makes this request for asylum, what does

the judge have to sift through in order to ultimately decide? guest: sure. typically with the judge will be looking for is credibility of a whether they feel like the story at east the individual -- story and the cased individual is presenting is reliable, if it meets the threshold of possibility and is supported by facts. individual present a detailed -- does the individual present a detailed and factual claim that is backed by news reports? there are common claims of persecution, whether it is being targeted by a targeted figure, targeted by gangs, targeted by religion, those are all claims. the immigration attorney and the individual will present not just the narrative of the individual but ultimately provide typically quite a thick packet of recent research on what is actually going on in the country the

person is coming from. if someone is from a particular country and they are claiming let's say gender violence for being a woman or a nonconforming gender, they will also provide evidence of persecution of other people in that situation as well as first-hand narrative to present the overall case, and the judge will ultimately decide whether or not that case get approved or not. host: this is austin kocher of syracuse university. if you want to ask him questions about the immigration related cases, particularly when it comes to asylum and other matters, you can call and ask. (202) 748-8001 for republicans. (202) 748-8000 for democrats. independents, (202) 748-8002. perhaps you have had experience with the immigration process, particularly on the legal front, and he want to ask a question. (202) 748-8003. you have probably heard on the senate side there was release of the text when it comes to the

senate bill on border security. a couple of these things could apply directly to asylum. first of all, $20 billion would particularly go for immigration enforcement, including the hiring of thousands of new officers to evaluate asylum claims. i don't know if that means judges per say but how would the money and new officers influence the current system? guest: certainly. so the number of pieces coming into the court far exceed the number of cases that judges are able to complete in any given month or year. even though the judges have been working harder than ever. they completed more cases in the first few months than they ever have so they are doing good work but there is a lot of cases. the bill provides funding not only for hiring many more immigration judges, as you said, but other officers within the immigration services will help adjudicate these claims. increased capacity could

increase the responsiveness to people seeking asylum. the bill includes restrictive measures on asylum that increase the hurdle migrants would have to face to be able to apply for asylum. there are some immigrant rights advocates that have concerns about that. the state of cases also affect outcome so insofar as the bill is attempting to speed up cases, that could be good from a processing perspective because it keeps people from waiting for years and years. but it also could disadvantage migrants seeking asylum. how people determine the bill is how they view border rights versus security. host: you talked about the standard applied to asylum. if there is an increased hurdle, what could that look like compared to what is being asked now of a person applying for asylum? guest: sure. fear -- currently, we have a credible fear standard.

before someone is allowed in the country to make a full asylum claim, whether that is the uscis or the immigration courts, they have to reach a threshold of having a credible fear. there is an asylum officer who has to make a determination the person has a credible claim, and if someone cannot meet that threshold they have to leave the country. increasing that hurdle would basically reduce the number of people or the percent of people let's say who would end up going on and being able to make a full asylum claim. host: again, our guest with us. we have calls lined up for you. the first one is from john. caller: yes. what a coincidence. the only thing that i agree with the republicans on his immigration -- is immigration. i want all of these people deported, and i am a democrat. if you are invading this country

illegally, i want you deported. now let's get onto the assignment. why? what a joke this is, the asylum thing has turned into. asylum is if you held us in vietnam and afghanistan and you were going to stay there and he would be killed, you deserve asylum. if you are gay in venezuela, you are being picked on, discriminated against, that can happen in america. the asylum lie -- everyone will claim asylum. it is a big show. i would do it too if i was coming for a better life. all of these people are coming for a better life and claiming asylum. and then you say they are in unsafe situations. join the crowd. try walking through chicago in the middle of the night. they should be thrown out. host: ok, thank you. guest: yeah, so the asylum laws

the united states has was created in 1980. it is part of the international refugee system created after world war ii. a crucial legislation that helped us deal with the fact that there are so many geopolitical and political events that happened in the world that produce massive display meant -- displacement. most do not come to the u.s. most go to other countries. those in syria go to jordan. but it allows people to request asylum for safety. and i just want to point out that in recent years, about half of people who present a full asylum claim in immigration court are approved for asylum. it is an indication that not only there are many meritorious claim asylum -- claims for

asylum, but let's remember there are trump appointed judges who are approving asylum because people meet that standard. that is a crucial thing to understand. whether or not there should be additional restrictions on asylum, whether the asylum system needs to change because of the number of people arriving at the u.s.-mexico border, that is a point of political debate. i think across the aisle, left, right, and center, i think people see value in providing options for safety and protection for people who are fleeing instability. i would point out venezuela is not a country the u.s. typically has strong relations with. it is also a country that faces tremendous instability. in fact, there are more of it is wayland seeking asylum now and facing deportation than people from mexico and central america at this point. the largest number in the immigration court backlog has