The hearing location contributing the most to the Court’s overall case backlog is Miami, Florida with 317,000 pending cases. Other places in descending order of their case backlog were 240,000 in New York City; 227,000 in Orlando, Florida; and 220,000 in Dallas, Texas. These locations were followed by 193,000 in Chicago, Illinois; and 190,000 cases in Newark, New Jersey.

Immigrants in the Court’s backlog who were currently detained had jumped by nearly 40 percent since the end of December. But the number of immigrants who were detained was still extremely small. Detained immigrants made up just 28,216 of the 3.7 million backlog of cases—just 0.77 percent. Among new NTAs, however, the number of detained has been rising. Among NTA’s that DHS issued during February, those detained were still less than half. A slight majority (53%) or 10,200 immigrants according to case-by-case court records were not detained after the NTA was issued.

Asylum Backlog: In contrast, the Court’s asylum backlog is continuing to climb. Up by nearly 150,000 cases, or a rise of 8.0 percent in just the past two months. Asylum filings generally take place after a removal case is filed. Asylum cases usually take more of a judge’s time to complete. Among asylum applicants, an even smaller proportion– just 0.33 percent – were currently detained. There were many similarities between the list of hearing locations with the largest overall backlogs and those with the largest asylum backlogs. Only one hearing location had over 200,000 asylum cases at the end of February. This was New York City. In descending order were the asylum backlogs in Miami, Florida (158,000) and Orlando, Florida (108,000). Chicago, Illinois and Newark, New Jersey were tied with 98,000 in each of their backlogs. While Dallas, Texas was in sixth place with 80,000 in its asylum backlog.

These findings come from an analysis of case-by-case Immigration Court records obtained by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

Other highlights from the February data, found in TRAC's updated Immigration Court Quick Facts tool, show:

• Backlog: At the end of February 2025, out of the total backlog of 3,687,750 cases, 1,961,655 immigrants have already filed formal asylum applications and are now waiting for asylum hearings or decisions in Immigration Court.
• Miami-Dade County, FL, has the most residents with pending Immigration Court deportation cases (as of the end of February 2025).
• Immigration Courts recorded receiving 325,149 new cases so far in FY 2025 as of February 2025. This compares with 374,506 cases that the court completed during this period.
• According to court records, only 1.02% of FY 2025 new cases sought deportation orders based on any alleged criminal activity of the immigrant, apart from possible illegal entry.
• So far this fiscal year (through February 2025), immigration judges have issued removal and voluntary departure orders in 45.6% of completed cases, totaling 162,514 deportation orders.
• Out of 63,189 Immigration Court deportation cases completed in February 2025, immigration judges issued 36,245 removal orders and gave voluntary departure to an additional 1,429 immigrants, meaning that deportation was ordered in 59.6% percent of all cases.
• Out of 3,413 Immigration Court cases in which some form of relief was granted in February 2025, asylum was granted for 2,344 immigrants (68.7%) following their merit hearings.
• Among Immigration Court cases completed in February 2025, immigrants in Arkansas had the highest proportion ordered removed. Vermont residents had the lowest proportion ordered removed.
• So far in FY 2025 (through February 2025), immigrants from Mexico top list of nationalities with the largest number ordered deported.
• Only 21.2% of immigrants, including unaccompanied children, had an attorney to assist them in Immigration Court cases when a removal order was issued in February 2025.
• Immigration judges have held 13,240 bond hearings so far in FY 2025 (through February 2025). Of these 3,316 were granted bond.

TRAC’s Immigration Quick Facts provides the latest data on immigrant detention, immigration court cases, and immigration prosecutions in federal court. Each page includes several key data points alongside a graphic or table, a short description for context, and a link to more data. Click here to see more about TRAC's entire suite of immigration tools.