The backlog of immigration cases has risen dramatically as President Donald Trump has tried to crack down on illegal immigration in his first two years in office. As of Nov. 30, 2018, the number of pending cases on the court’s active docket grew to 809,041 cases, a nearly 50 percent increase since January 2017, according to Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, or TRAC.

“The shutdown will undoubtedly make the immigration court case backlog worse, a backlog that already numbers around 800,000 cases,” she said. “Holding government operations hostage for a wasteful and ineffective border wall will do nothing to make our country safer, but it will undermine due process and make the court backlogs worse.”