Trump Administration Uses Mega Hearings to Clear Immigration Backlog

The Trump administration is utilizing large-scale "mega master" hearings and reduced notice periods to clear a decades-long immigration court backlog. In June 2026, Chicago's immigration court issued 6,012 removal orders in absentia, the highest number of any U.S. city. These hearings, where judges may handle over 50 cases a day or schedule more than 200 people for a single courtroom, saw a nearly threefold increase in June 2026 compared to the previous year.

Data from the nonprofit Mobile Pathways indicates that hearing no-show rates doubled from 20% in January 2025 to 40% by June 2026. This trend contributed to a surge in deportation orders, which rose from 33,000 to 79,000 over the same period. Consequently, the national backlog dropped from 3.7 million to 3.5 million cases in fiscal year 2025, marking the first decrease in at least 10 years.

Legal advocates and the ACLU describe the conditions as chaotic, arguing that short-notice rescheduling and mail delays lead defendants to miss hearings and abandon valid asylum claims. The Resurrection Project characterized these tactics as a design to deport people without due process. Conversely, the United States Department of Justice and the Executive Office for Immigration Review maintain that the measures restore integrity to the system by processing cases more expeditiously and ensuring they do not languish.