Biden in 2019 promised to double the number of US immigration judges. In his term they grew 1.66 times: 735 instead of 884
Joe BidenDecember 2019 · Biden campaign immigration plan on joebiden.com
«As president, Biden will: [...] Double the number of immigration judges, court staff, and interpreters.»
735 judges at the end of FY2024 against 442 at the end of FY2019: 1.66 times as many, not double.
At the end of fiscal 2019 there were 442 judges. Hiring was fastest in 2022–2023; in 2025 the number fell to 634.
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In the US, asylum and removal cases are decided by immigration courts under the Department of Justice, and their backlog has grown for years. Biden’s campaign plan promised twice as many judges. Here is how many there were at the end of each fiscal year.
First the words: who said it, when and where, verbatim (translations are ours). Answer Yes or No, or just open the answer: the stamp is the outcome, below it what came of it. On the chart the dark line is the fact year by year up to the deadline, the pale one after it; the blue dashed line is the promised number from the year of the words to the deadline, the light band the time the promise gave; the ring on the line is when it was said, the ring in the stamp’s colour the fact in the deadline year, beside it how far it landed from the goal. The numbers on the right are the scale.
- Joe Biden, Biden campaign immigration plan on joebiden.com quote
«As president, Biden will: [...] Double the number of immigration judges, court staff, and interpreters.»
- What happened did not come true
735 judges at the end of FY2024 against 442 at the end of FY2019: 1.66 times as many, not double.
Quote: the campaign immigration plan on joebiden.com (web.archive.org copy of 13 December 2019). Fact: US Department of Justice, Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR), immigration judge hiring statistics. Outcome: «came true» — the promised number reached by the deadline («about» within 5%), an event happened before the end of the year promised; «exceeded» — with room to spare; «nearly» — short by no more than 10%; «late» — reached, but after the deadline; «did not come true» — not reached; «came true, then undone» — reached, then reversed. The deadline is the end of the year named.
The base is 442 judges at the end of fiscal 2019, the last figure before the plan. Temporary judges are not counted. The plan also promised to double court staff and interpreters; they are not counted here. The 2025 fall came under the next administration.
A question for this picture
Will there be enough judges if the backlog grows faster than the bench?