The average wait time to obtain a green card for immediate relatives of a U.S. citizen is usually five months or less. However, over the past year, the wait time has tripled as thousands of families have had to wait over 15 months to lawfully reunite their families. 

The delays stem from the well-intentioned “Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals” (DACA) program enacted by the Obama administration in 2012. The program allows undocumented immigrants who came to the United States before the age of 16 to obtain a two-year deferral from deportation, provided certain criteria are met. 

While the program has protected over 600,000 young applicants from deportation in just a year and a half, the limited resources of the United States Customs and Immigration Service (USCIS) has hampered the agency’s ability to handle existing responsibilities.

Over half a million family members of U.S. citizens have had their immigration applications delayed. Family members of those seeking asylum have had to stay behind in dangerous, and often deadly, conditions. 

While the Obama administration has indicated that they are working on solving the issue, there is no indication that the wait times will be reduced anytime soon. Families aching to see each other for over a year are not allowed to visit the United States on a visitors visa, as the law requires green card applicants to wait for approval before entering the United States. 

The Obama administration chose to circumvent congress and take executive action after Republicans denied the passage of the DREAM Act - a bill that would have allowed undocumented children brought to the country through no will of their own a legal path to citizenship. 

Following President Obama’s announcement, USCIS was flooded with a barrage of over 2,000 applications per day. Since the program was not through an act of congress, USCIS was given no new funding to handle the massive increase in workload. Instead, the federal agency had to prioritize deportation deferments and focus their attention and limited resources to address the accelerating pace of applications. Agencies were understaffed and were not able to hire new employees for the staggering amount of pending immigration cases. 

The DACA program is not the only cause for delays. Before President Obama’s announcement, immigration courts were overwhelmed with cases - a byproduct of the nation’s obsolete immigration system. Immigration courts have had an 85% increase in cases in just 5 years. 

Deportation hearings - a punishment James Madison considered “among the severest” - have been reduced to a paltry 7 minutes. The unrelenting volume of cases accelerated after a hiring freeze at the Department of Justice, which has left over 30 vacant seats on the bench. Furthermore, the government shutdown last year added to the delay by over 37,000 cases, straining an already unprecedented backlog of 357,167 cases. 

Caseloads are expected to rise even more as nearly half the current immigration judges are eligible to retire by next year. A bill passed by the senate to hire 225 new judges was stalled in the House of Representatives last year, withSpeaker Boehner refusing to address the issue. 

The outdated and inefficient immigration system has caused an emotional strain on families unnecessarily kept apart from each other. The inflating backlog of immigration cases, and the understaffed federal agencies, echoes the need for the federal government to enact comprehensive immigration reform. 

As I’ve written before, the bipartisan Senate “Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act of 2013” has been denied a vote on the House floor. Just this month, Speaker Boehner has expressed doubt that immigration reform would pass anytime this year. The longer immigration reform is put off, the more emotional strain it will cause on families separated by a wall of inflated bureaucracy and unsound policies. Increasing call for action, however, will convince Speaker Boehner to bring the billl to the floor for an up or down vote.