EOIR Cases Statistics in US 2026 | EOIR Cases Facts

What is EOIR and Its Immigration Court System

The Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) is an agency within the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) that administers the nation’s immigration court system. Established by the Attorney General on January 9, 1983, EOIR was created to separate the adjudication of immigration cases from immigration enforcement — a separation that moved the immigration judge function out of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) and into an independent administrative body within DOJ. EOIR’s primary responsibility is to conduct removal proceedings under Section 240 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), in which immigration judges (IJs) determine whether foreign nationals charged with immigration violations by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) should be removed from the United States or are eligible for some form of relief — such as asylum, cancellation of removal, or voluntary departure. Beyond removal proceedings, EOIR also adjudicates bond hearings for detained individuals, handles appellate review through the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA), and adjudicates cases related to employer sanctions and immigration-related employment discrimination through the Office of the Chief Administrative Hearing Officer (OCAHO). The agency operates immigration courts across 27 U.S. states, Puerto Rico, and the Northern Mariana Islands, ranging in size from large urban courts with dozens of judges to single-judge courts in smaller jurisdictions.

In 2026, EOIR sits at the center of one of the most turbulent and consequential periods in the history of the US immigration court system. The DOJ officially confirmed that immigration courts completed the most cases in EOIR’s history in FY 2025, and that EOIR is on pace to surpass that total in FY 2026. Since January 20, 2025, EOIR has reduced the immigration court backlog by over 380,000 cases — the sharpest decrease in the agency’s history — bringing a caseload that had ballooned to over 4.18 million pending cases under more manageable conditions. Yet the raw scale of what EOIR is dealing with in 2026 remains staggering: with over 3.3 million active cases still pending as of February 2026, an asylum backlog exceeding 2.4 million applications, and immigration judges handling individual dockets that would have been considered unimaginably large just a decade ago, the court system remains one of the most overtaxed adjudicatory bodies in any branch of the US government. The combination of record case completions, the sharpest backlog reduction in the agency’s 42-year history, and sustained pressure to adjudicate millions of pending cases fairly and expeditiously defines the EOIR story heading into the second half of fiscal year 2026.

Interesting EOIR Cases Key Facts 2026

Source: U.S. Department of Justice EOIR Press Release September 4, 2025; DOJ @TheJusticeDept Twitter/X April 2026; Congressional Research Service (CRS) Reports IN12638, IN12492, IN12463 (January–November 2025); TRAC Immigration Court Quick Facts (February 2026); EOIR Adjudication Statistics

The facts above frame a picture of an institution simultaneously achieving historic productivity while still wrestling with a backlog so large that it would take years of sustained effort at current completion rates to fully resolve. The FY 2025 record of the most cases ever completed in EOIR’s history is genuinely significant — it reflects policy changes, administrative reforms, the rescission of over 20 prior policies that EOIR says discouraged timely completions, and the restoration of adjudicator discretion under the current administration. The backlog reduction of over 380,000 cases since January 20, 2025 — confirmed in the DOJ’s April 2026 statement — represents the sharpest decrease in the agency’s 42-year history and is primarily the product of two simultaneous forces: a dramatic increase in case completions and a dramatic decrease in new case filings following the border enforcement changes implemented from January 2025 onward. New cases entering the system slowed as more migrants were processed through expedited removal rather than formal court proceedings, while existing cases were being resolved at a record pace.

What remains sobering is the baseline against which these achievements are measured. Even after reducing the backlog by over 380,000 cases, more than 3.3 million active cases still waited in the system as of February 2026. The average docket per immigration judge — with approximately 570 active judges as of early 2026 — remains at roughly 5,500 cases each, an almost unmanageable load by any comparison to conventional court systems. For context: the backlog that EOIR had in FY2006 was under 169,000 cases total. By FY2019, that had grown to 1.33 million — and it has been expanding rapidly ever since. The record completions of FY 2025 and the projected records of FY 2026 are meaningful steps. But the scale of the remaining challenge means the immigration court system will be grappling with its historic backlog for years, if not decades, regardless of how aggressively cases are completed in any single fiscal year.

EOIR Case Completions Statistics in the US 2026

Source: DOJ EOIR Press Release September 4, 2025; DOJ @TheJusticeDept Twitter/X April 2026; Congressional Research Service IN12492 (January 2025); TRAC Immigration Court Quick Facts February 2026; EOIR Adjudication Statistics

The case completion trajectory for EOIR over the last several years is one of the most striking growth curves in any US federal administrative system. Going from roughly 276,000 completions in FY2019 to 701,749 in FY2024 and then a full-year record of 767,398 in FY2025 represents a nearly three-fold increase in case processing volume in just six years — achieved without a proportional increase in immigration judges (the IJ corps went from 578 to approximately 735 over roughly the same period) and against a backdrop of enormous new filings from record levels of border encounters. The key drivers of the FY 2025 record were a combination of policy changes that removed procedural barriers to case completion — including the rescission of policies EOIR said had “discouraged the timely completion of cases” — and the restoration of broader adjudicator discretion to rule on cases consistently with existing law. EOIR also implemented what it called the “Dedicated Docket” expansion, which accelerated hearings for certain categories of respondents.

The FY 2026 pace is equally remarkable. By the end of February 2026 — just five months into the fiscal year — EOIR had already completed 333,957 cases. Annualized, that projects to approximately 800,000+ completions for the full fiscal year, which would represent a new record surpassing even FY 2025’s historic total. The contrast with new case intake tells a fundamentally different story than prior years: in FY 2026 through February, EOIR received only 201,878 new cases — far fewer than the 333,957 cases it completed in the same period, meaning that for the first time in many years, the court system is closing more cases than it’s opening. That net reduction is the direct mechanism behind the 380,000-plus case backlog reduction documented by DOJ since January 20, 2025. Whether this pace can be sustained through the rest of FY 2026 and beyond depends heavily on new enforcement patterns, immigration judge staffing decisions, and the continued application of current policy frameworks.

EOIR Case Backlog Statistics in the US 2026

Source: DOJ EOIR Press Release September 4, 2025; DOJ @TheJusticeDept April 2026; TRAC Immigration Court Quick Facts February 2026; CRS Reports IN12492, IN12463; CIS Immigration Court Backlog Analysis November 2025; Vasquez Law Firm EOIR January 2026 Analysis

The backlog data tells the story of 18 consecutive years of growth — from 168,827 pending cases in FY2006 to a peak of over 4.18 million on January 20, 2025 — followed by the first sustained decline since the mid-2000s. The numbers are almost impossible to contextualize without reference points from other court systems. The entire US federal judiciary — all 94 district courts combined — handles roughly 360,000 civil and criminal cases annually. EOIR alone received nearly 1.8 million new cases in FY2024. The immigration court system processes more new filings per year than the entire rest of the federal court system combined. The comparison breaks down quickly because immigration courts are administrative tribunals, not Article III courts — but it illustrates the sheer volume pressure that EOIR has been operating under for years.

The first backlog reduction in 18 years is a genuine milestone. The decline from over 4.18 million to under 3.32 million by February 2026 — a reduction of nearly 860,000 cases — reflects both the record case completion pace and the dramatic slowdown in new case filings. Under prior years, DHS was sending 148,663 new cases per month on average (FY2024 data). By FY2026, that inflow had dropped dramatically — in the first five months of FY2026, only 201,878 new cases were filed total, an average of just over 40,000 per month. That’s a 73% reduction in new monthly case intake compared to FY2024 averages, and it is the single biggest driver of backlog reduction. The average wait time of nearly 900 days — nearly two and a half years — still reflects the weight of the existing backlog on individual respondents, who may have filed their cases years ago and are still waiting for resolution despite the system now processing cases at record speed.

EOIR FY 2025 Case Outcome Statistics in the US

Source: Congressional Research Service IN12638 (January 2026 — “FY2025 Immigration Court Data: Case Outcomes”); EOIR Adjudication Statistics November 18, 2025; CIS Immigration Court Analysis August 2025; TRAC Immigration Court Grant Rates November 2025

The FY 2025 case outcome statistics reflect a system that has shifted dramatically from prior years in terms of both the volume of decisions and the nature of those decisions. The 63% removal order rate — the highest share going to removal orders in the FY 2025 data — alongside the 306,557 in absentia removal orders tells a story about the nature of the caseload being adjudicated. In absentia orders are issued when respondents fail to appear for hearings, and the rate has skyrocketed under the current environment: the monthly average of over 24,000 in absentia orders during the first three quarters of FY 2025 is roughly three times the monthly average in FY 2019 (when it stood at 7,600 per month), despite the backlog being smaller then. The surge in no-show rates likely reflects a combination of older cases from the pre-2025 era finally reaching hearing dates, respondents who have already self-deported or relocated, and a sharply increased percentage of cases being processed through default hearings when DHS-required notices are served but respondents don’t appear.

The asylum statistics are among the most discussed data in the EOIR picture. The 12% grant rate for FY 2025 represents a sharp drop from prior years — the average grant rate under the Biden administration (FY2022–FY2024) was approximately 49%, while the first Trump administration averaged 31%. By August 2025, the monthly grant rate had fallen to 19.2% — essentially cut in half from 38.2% a year earlier. Meanwhile, asylum denials surged dramatically: in just nine months of FY 2025, immigration judges denied nearly 59,000 asylum claims — 53% more denials than occurred in the entire 12 months of FY 2024. The 54% “Other” outcome rate for asylum decisions is the highest on record and likely reflects a large volume of cases being terminated or dismissed rather than adjudicated on the merits — potentially tied to DHS enforcement priorities directing resources away from certain case categories and toward expedited removal pathways outside the formal court system.

EOIR Immigration Court Staffing & Infrastructure Statistics 2026

Source: Congressional Research Service IN12492 (January 2025), GAO Immigration Courts Report, TRAC Immigration Court Grant Rates November 2025, EOIR OBBBA Analysis (CIS November 2025), TRAC Quick Facts February 2026

The staffing picture at EOIR is one of the most consequential factors in understanding why the backlog exists and why it’s so difficult to close even at record completion rates. The near-tripling of immigration judges from 254 to 735 over a decade is a substantial hiring achievement — but it was achieved against a backdrop of caseload growth that was even more explosive. During those same years, the backlog went from roughly 470,000 cases (FY2015) to over 4.18 million (January 2025) — roughly a nine-fold increase in backlog against a three-fold increase in judges. No amount of judge hiring could keep pace with an intake that reached 1.8 million new cases in a single fiscal year. The OBBBA’s $3.3 billion allocation for EOIR staffing represents a significant commitment, but the 800-judge cap embedded in the legislation remains a point of debate — at 5,500 cases per current judge average, even 800 fully staffed and operational judges would struggle to dent a backlog of 3+ million cases within a reasonable timeframe.

The Trump administration’s approach to IJ staffing in FY 2025 was unconventional by any historical standard. While the prior administration hired 437 new IJs over five years, FY 2025 saw zero permanent IJ hires — a fact documented by TRAC. This was partially offset by the October 2025 appointments of 25 military JAG officers as temporary immigration judges and 11 additional permanent appointments, a novel approach to rapid capacity expansion using military legal personnel. Simultaneously, EOIR under the Trump administration carried out significant judge terminations — at least 70 IJs received termination notices per NPR reporting — making FY2025 the first year in many that the net IJ count actually fell rather than grew. The practical result is that EOIR achieved its record completions with fewer judges than the previous year was budgeted for — a reflection of the shift toward faster case resolution per judge through policy changes rather than raw headcount expansion.

EOIR Cases Historical Timeline & Backlog Context Statistics

Source: U.S. Department of Justice EOIR official press releases; DOJ @TheJusticeDept (April 2026); Congressional Research Service Reports; TRAC Immigration Court Quick Facts; DOJ EOIR Evolution page; CRS R47077 U.S. Immigration Courts and the Pending Cases Backlog

The 40-year timeline of EOIR reads as a story of steady institutional growth followed by explosive caseload expansion that no amount of judge hiring or policy reform has been able to fully contain — until perhaps now. For its first three and a half decades, EOIR operated with relatively modest caseloads that, while growing, were at least within the range of manageable. The agency’s pending caseload grew from under 170,000 in FY2006 to approximately 470,000 in FY2015 — still large, still a backlog, but one that an adequately resourced court system could conceivably work through. The years from FY2019 forward represent a categorical shift: the one-million-case threshold was crossed, then quickly became a distant memory as the backlog raced toward 2.5 million, 3.5 million, 4 million.

The current period — FY2025 through early FY2026 — represents the first genuine reversal of that two-decade trend. The backlog that peaked at over 4.18 million cases has been reduced by over 860,000 cases from peak to February 2026, and continues to fall. The mechanism is straightforward: new case filings have dropped dramatically (from 148,663 per month in FY2024 to roughly 40,000 per month in early FY2026), while completion rates have hit all-time records. EOIR Acting Director Sirce E. Owen’s stated priority — “reducing the immigration court backlog is one of the highest priorities for the agency” — is bearing statistical fruit on a pace not seen in the agency’s history. Whether the progress holds through the full FY 2026 fiscal year and beyond depends on whether new enforcement intake remains restrained, whether staffing levels stabilize, and whether the record-completion policy environment continues.

Disclaimer: This research report is compiled from publicly available sources. While reasonable efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, no representation or warranty, express or implied, is given as to the completeness or reliability of the information. We accept no liability for any errors, omissions, losses, or damages of any kind arising from the use of this report.

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