Pres. Trump needs to offer billions more to fix the migrant crisis

The violent anti-ICE riots that erupted in Los Angeles last week were the inevitable result of years of Washington’s failure to enforce immigration law. As masked mobs torched government property and assaulted officers tasked with upholding the rule of law, one thing became clear: the border crisis isn’t just at the border.

President Trump vowed to restore order through mass deportations — and he can, but only if Congress does its part. That means recognizing the core problem that’s too often ignored: without a functioning immigration court system, no one can actually be deported. Right now, more than 4 million migrant cases are languishing in limbo, inviting new waves of illegal immigration. The message this sends is to cross the border and work freely for up to 10 years while waiting for a hearing until it is inhumane to be deported.

Congress is starting to notice. Buried in the House’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” is $1.25 billion in funding to hire 250 immigration judges and their staff. Extra judges is welcome news, but the appropriation is insufficient. According to my estimates, we need 1,000 more immigration judges to eliminate the court backlog by the end of President Trump’s term. Although the bill allocates over $100 billion for border security, it almost entirely ignores the greatest obstacle to deportations: the underfunded immigration court system.

What would it really cost to get the immigration court system back on track? Hiring 250 judges annually carries a price tag of $4.7 billion over five years, about three dollars per American. This would give every immigrant due process and help send home the millions who are legally deportable. That is scarcely a rounding error in the federal budget, yet it is the difference between enforcing the law and surrendering to chaos.  The OBBB as it stands offers only a quarter of what is required.

Yet immigration courts are only half the story. US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is sitting on 1.4 million affirmative asylum applications — cases filed by people who arrive in the US on a visa. Because asylum-seekers pay no filing fee, the backlog is funded almost entirely by jacking up costs on high-skilled immigrants, who now shoulder a $600 surcharge every time their employers file paperwork. This is unfair and insufficient.

On this issue, Congress is doing exactly what it should and is proposing a $1,000 asylum filing fee. Under current conditions, such a fee would raise $400 million in annual revenue — enough to hire hundreds of asylum officers. Legitimate asylees already spend thousands on legal assistance, so costs are not a new barrier. Rather, the costs ensure that those who benefit from asylum bear the burden of processing applications, instead of other legal immigrants. The Republican-proposed fee also ensures that fraudulent asylum applications are a less attractive path for illegal immigrants.

To further dissuade fraudulent asylum, Trump’s USCIS and Executive Office for Immigration Review should revive the last-in, first-out rule they implemented in his first term. This rule would process the most recent asylum filings before older ones. The policy proved effective since would-be border crossers and visa overstayers learned that bogus asylum claims would be denied quickly, thus shrinking the inflow. Reinstated alongside a surge of judges and asylum officers, last-in-first-out would end future illegal immigration while working through the backlog of current illegal immigrants.

Critics scoff that nearly $5 billion is too much and argue for scrapping the deportation court process in favor of broader executive authority. Yet one court ruling after another proves that any rewrite of asylum law still needs 60 votes in the Senate. The quickest and most practical solution is to hire more immigration judges and deport those ordered to leave. The president and the Department of Homeland Security also wisely help migrants self-deport by paying for their flight home and giving them $1,000, saving the much larger cost of deportation.

President Trump has promised mass deportations; his allies in Congress say they want that. The irony is that the price tag for making good on that pledge is shockingly small, but only if lawmakers write a bigger number into the bill currently on the floor. If Republicans are serious about restoring order at the border and in the cities the radical left is rioting, they should prove it by signing the check and hiring immigration judges.

Daniel Di Martino is a fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a PhD candidate in Economics at Columbia University.