Immigration backlog is the result of longstanding political gridlock, says Julio Ricardo Varela

Immigration courts in the United States currently face a backlog of over 1.6 million cases as the result of understaffed courts and an influx of new cases under the administration of former President Donald Trump. Julio Ricardo Varela, founder of the news blog Latino Rebels and co-executive director for Futuro Media, joined Boston Public Radio to talk about what this means for immigrants in the country.

“There's a humongous green card backlog right now, particularly in the Southern Asian community,” Varela said. “What you're seeing now is years and years and years of what people say is a broken system. And a lot of these backlogs, they're not new.”

Varela said the immigration lawyers he knows have been warning of this backlog for the past decade, and that it will only get worse, both for legal immigrants seeking green cards and immigrants living in the United States as they seek legal permission.

The problem, according to Varela, comes from political gridlock, particularly with Republicans.

“I don't necessarily think right now this is a priority for this country,” he said. “Biden can't do it … and if Republicans take the midterms — it's going to happen — it's just going to pendulum back and forth. Who loses are all these hard-working people.”

Varela not only criticized Republicans’ extreme anti-immigration stance, but also criticized President Joe Biden’s inability to push back against Trump-era policies, which he worries will hurt Democrats in this year's elections nationwide. Last December, a federal judge forced Biden to reinstate former President Trump’s Remain in Mexico policy, which forced asylum-seekers to stay in Mexico while waiting for their hearings.

“It's part of the American tradition to say ‘We are a nation of immigrants.' And it's an American tradition to blame somebody else," he said.

Varela emphasized that when immigrants lose, the whole country loses.

“There are reports about how the immigrant community in Boston has saved the economy of the city over the last 20 years,” he said. “They are the engine of the city, and we tend to forget that.”