Federal district courts near the southwest border are bracing for a potential increase in cases, as the Trump administration pledges to prioritize immigration enforcement over other criminal matters (article available here).
Chief judges of trial courts in southern Texas and California said preparations include working to ensure they have space available to process more defendants and interpreters on-call and closely monitoring border numbers.
“We’re sort of holding our breath and waiting to see what happens,” said Chief Judge of the US District Court for the Southern District of California, based in San Diego. During the first Trump administration when immigration cases increased, “we were almost at the breaking point,” the judge said.
The Chief Judge of the Western District of Texas, who sits in Del Rio, said her immigration caseload has always been high, a trend that started over a decade ago, and her court remains prepared for spikes.
The administration has also exempted US attorneys’ offices near the borders from a federal hiring freeze, allowing them to bring on more lawyers to prosecute immigration cases.
However, fears of a caseload spike across the border haven’t been realized.
“You can increase the number of law enforcement agents, but if you don’t increase resources in the court system, you’re not going to get anywhere very quickly,” Chief Judge of the Western District of Texas said.