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Rationing Justice?: The Effect Of Caseload Pressures On The U.S. Courts Of Appeals In Immigration Cases, Anna O. Law

Anna O. Law

Beginning in late 2003, the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the Second and Ninth Circuits experienced a deluge of immigration cases caused by changes in another part of the immigration bureaucracy. How did these two circuits, especially the Ninth circuit and its personnel, which handle more than 50% of all immigration appeals nationwide, respond to the "immigration surge" as it came to be called? Using interview data from 25% of the active judges on the court and some central staff, the article examines the series of internal experiments in case management that the Ninth Circuit was forced to undertake in …