President Trump’s tightening of border enforcement has allowed federal judges to close more immigration cases than open new ones for the first time since 2008 – chipping away at a massive backlog that ballooned under the Biden administration.

Nearly 3.9 million immigration cases – more than the population of Chicago – were pending at the end of fiscal year 2024, and the load of new cases taken on outnumbered closures by over 1 million.

Under Trump, the backlog of active cases has fallen by more than 87,000 through the third quarter of 2025, according to Justice Department data .

Additionally, immigration judges have completed about 588,000 pending cases – well over the 448,000 new ones they’ve received.

Data compiled by Syracuse University’s Transaction Records Access Clearingho

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