Immigrants facing years-long waits in Denver immigration court

Thousands of immigrants attempting to seek legal status or other court actions in Colorado are having their cases delayed for nearly five years — an unprecedented backlog in this state’s immigration court.

The backlog that some Denver immigration attorneys call “a standstill” is part of national immigration court jam of almost 430,000 cases. But the legal pileup is particularly bad in Colorado, where all the immigration judges have been ordered to hear only priority cases.

Since September, two of Colorado’s three immigration judges have been assigned to remotely hear cases in other states. Instead of chipping away at the local backlog, Judge Donn Livingston and Judge Eileen Trujillo are handling cases by video for a new detention center in Dilley, Texas, that houses unaccompanied minors and families with minors that have been crossing the Mexican border to seek asylum. The judges were hearing cases remotely at a detention facility in Artesia, N.M., before that center was closed.

Those judges’ other cases in the immigration court in Denver have had to be set aside, swelling the state’s pending caseload to 8,523. In 2000, the court had 1,091 immigration cases pending; in 2010, the figure was 6,654.

Hearing dates for many of these pending cases as well as for new cases are now being set for Nov. 29, 2019.

“It’s a disaster for many people. This has nearly brought us to a standstill,” said Jennifer Casey, a Denver immigration attorney who is the liaison to the Denver immigration court for the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

Casey cited the case of a client who has been living without documentation in the Denver area for nearly two decades. The woman has two citizen children and a citizen husband and no criminal record. She qualifies for relief because of her family ties and her record. But she is unable to have her request for a waiver from deportation heard.

“She can’t get her day in court,” Casey said.

The 2019 date currently being set for this woman’s case and tens of thousands around the country is an arbitrary “place holder” date. It was recommended by the Executive Office for Immigration Review, the arm of the U.S. Department of Justice that oversees the immigration courts.

The date is an attempt to create some breathing room while the agency takes measures to shore up the court system.

Colorado already had been struggling with an overflow of cases before the unaccompanied-minor crisis.

Two Denver judges had retired in the past year. The process to replace those judges is still grinding on and is not expected to result in new judges being appointed for six to nine months.

That means one judge from the downtown immigration court, Judge Mimi Tsankov, has been shuttling back and forth to the detention center in Aurora to hear cases. Detainees there are having to wait about six months for a hearing. Tsankov also is handling the priority cases of unaccompanied minors and adult immigrants with children who have been allowed to come to Colorado and live with relatives while their cases are pending.

There are plans to alleviate the problem in Colorado.

The court will borrow immigration judges from other states to expedite some of the Aurora detainee cases.

Also, the assignment of Livingston and Trujillo to hear the out-of-state detention cases is supposed to end in May. Those judges would then return to handling their normal docket of Colorado cases.

But asked whether the remote duties would end as scheduled, Justice Department spokeswoman Kathryn Mattingly responded by e-mail: “You are welcome to check back in May to learn if there are any changes.”

Mattingly also wrote that her agency “constantly monitors its caseload nationwide and shifts resources, to include personnel, to meet needs in the most efficient manner possible.”

Nancy Lofholm: 970-256-1957, nlofholm@denverpost.com or twitter.com/nlofholm