SALT LAKE CITY — Utah’s immigration court system could face greater pressure with the new Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility in the state, according to local immigration attorneys.
Data from the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse shows Utah’s immigration court currently has a backlog of 48,753 pending cases, with an average wait time of about 743 days.
Some hearings are being scheduled as far out as 2029, highlighting the severity of the backlog, according to immigration attorney Jonathan Shaw of Intermountain Immigration.
Shaw said the new ICE detention center — especially the unprecedented 7,000-10,000-person “mega center” or even a 1,500-person “regional center” proposed under the agency’s new reengineering initiative — could intensify those delays.
The concern, Shaw said, lies in the state’s limited judicial resources. Utah currently has only two full-time immigration judges and one temporary judge — after losing three judges last year — far fewer than would be needed to handle a surge in cases.
“I think they would need eight to 10 immigration judges in Utah to handle the load on the dockets that we already have, plus the load on the detained docket,” Shaw said.
ICE hasn’t disclosed the facility’s capacity, but the cases of detainees housed there would be handled by Utah’s immigration court, even if they are from out of state.
Beyond immigration courts, Shaw believed the added caseload could spill over into the federal court system, potentially slowing efforts to secure timely releases for individuals who were wrongfully detained, since policy changes now require immigration bonds to be obtained in federal courts.
“Federal judges who rarely would see a habeas corpus claim in years past suddenly have stacks and stacks of those files on their desk,” Shaw said. “It just seems like sometimes that pressure on immigrants is almost intended as a way to… push people to self-deport.”
At the same time, Shaw said there could be some benefit to having a local detention facility. People detained in Utah would be less likely to be transported to out-of-state facilities. Currently, Utahns detained by ICE are often held in facilities in Colorado, Nevada, or Texas.
By being detained in Utah, Shaw believed it would also be easier to find legal representation.
“Local attorneys sometimes find it very burdensome to represent people outside of the state of Utah; there is more time involved, more cost involved, it creates a bigger expense for immigrants,” Shaw said. “So, it might help in some ways.”
Shaw added that legal costs often rise significantly when detainees are held out of state, so a local facility could reduce financial burdens for some families.
“There are some things that could potentially be viewed as positive,” Shaw said, “although in general the immigrant community sees it [a detention center] as a negative.”
Read more: Questions grow over possible ICE ‘Mega Center’ in Salt Lake City