Expert on Top 2023 Immigration Cases to Watch (Law360)

Alyssa Aquino, Law360, Jan. 2, 2023

"The U.S. Supreme Court's anticipated ruling on President Joe Biden's deportation guidelines will intensify the White House's standoff with Republican states on immigration policy. The Ninth Circuit is also expected to rule on the constitutionality of the illegal reentry ban. ... Cornell Law School Professor Stephen Yale-Loehr told Law360 that reviews of BIA and immigration court decisions by federal courts are important in light of the complexity of deportation cases that typically have to be resolved under severe time constraints. "The immigration courts are certainly overwhelmed. They have 1.9 million cases pending and many of these cases involve important issues, like whether someone will be persecuted or killed if they go back home. It's like trying to decide death penalty cases in a traffic court setting," he said. ... As USCIS' processing times skyrocket, more noncitizens are taking their gripes with delayed visas and work permits to the courts. Cornell's Yale-Loehr said the courts have been pushing back against litigation challenging delayed immigration applications, refraining from second-guessing how USCIS divvies up its resources and being generally sympathetic to the practical realities of the backlog. But the amount of so-called mandamus cases being lobbed against USCIS is growing, and Yale-Loehr said he expects to see some friction from the sheer volume of it all. "I think we're going to see some tension there between people saying, 'I've got to sue because I've been waiting for two years,' and whether federal courts will go along with that or not," he said."