BacklogPredictor3000: What Will It Take to Eliminate the Immigration Court Backlog? Assessing “Judge Team” Hiring Needs Based on Changed Conditions and the Need for Broader Reform

An Interactive Tool to Estimate IJ Team Hiring Needs Based on Updated Information and Different Assumptions

Immigration Judge (IJ) productivity, case receipts and completions, and other variables affecting the backlog will change over time. For this reason, the authors have developed an interactive tool that permits policymakers, administrators, and others to assess IJ hiring needs based on changed circumstances and under different scenarios. This tool, the BacklogPredictor3000, is now available to download by clicking here.

The BacklogPredictor3000 consists of a spreadsheet that automatically calculates future case backlogs based on numbers chosen by a user. Numbers in colored boxes can be changed to look at different scenarios: IJ hiring rates, IJ attrition rates, IJ productivity, and case receipts. The numbers in white boxes are calculated using those in the colored boxes and will automatically update when the colored boxes are changed. Gray boxes in the chart represent historical data. As new data becomes available, the user should enter the new values into the corresponding rows and change their color to gray. The plot on the right of the figures depicts historical data and future projections for the case backlog. It will automatically update along with the chart.

The tool can be used in two ways. In Worksheet 1, the user assumes that average productivity of IJs, the number of case receipts, and the number of new hires will remain constant over the years. The user enters the number for each of these variables into a single cell, and the spreadsheet and plot update accordingly. This allows the user to compare different simple scenarios. To save data for a certain scenario, the table and plot can be copied and pasted into a Word document.

Worksheet 2 allows the user to look at more complex scenarios where these values vary over time. In this case, the user should enter the desired values directly into the colored cells in the table. For example, this worksheet could be used to look at scenarios where the number of new cases increases or decreases in the future.

Citation:

This interactive tool, “The BacklogPredictor3000,” and its related software, structure, organization, and code, are the intellectual property of and are owned by the Center for Migration Studies of New York. Application, use, and/or citation or reference to the Backlog Predictor3000 in the course of generation of estimates for publications of any kind must cite to the source article:

Kerwin, D., & Kerwin, B. (2024). What Will It Take to Eliminate the Immigration Court Backlog? Assessing “Judge Team” Hiring Needs Based on Changed Conditions and the Need for Broader Reform. Journal on Migration and Human Security, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/23315024241226645