The nation’s immigration case backlog–the queue people whose fates are waiting to be decided by an immigration judge–is 350,000 people long. The Washington Post’s Eli Saslow spent a day in one Virginia immigration judge’s courtroom and produced a portrait as heartbreaking as it is infuriating. The backlog, steadily populated by aggressive immigration enforcement, means judges are forced to make rapidfire decisions that will affect the rest of whole families’ lives.

From the Washington Post:

"Farmville, Room 294, can you hear us?" a court interpreter asked. The screen seemed to freeze. The court took a short recess while a technician fixed the video feed. As the recess continued, Iraheta’s wife, Maria, and two sons stood up in the second row of the courtroom and walked toward the video screen. "There he is!" said Dylan, 9, an American citizen, tugging at his mother’s shirt. They stood within view of the camera so Iraheta could see them. "Oh, God," Iraheta said, wiping his eyes as they smiled and waved. "You came. Thank you."

He had not seen all of them together for seven months, since he got into his car to drive to his sister’s house for a Sunday barbecue and was pulled over by police for drinking and driving, a mistake that threatened to undo the life he had built in the Manassas suburbs. He had crossed into the United States illegally in 2000, and Maria had followed a year later. He worked in construction; she walked two miles each evening to wash dishes at IHOP for $8 an hour. They paid taxes, joined a church and raised three kids, now 19, 15 and 9. Two months after Iraheta was apprehended and placed into deportation proceedings, his family celebrated the birth of his first granddaughter — "an honest-to-God second-generation American," one cousin said.

For 14 years, Iraheta and Maria had shared the same bed in a small apartment, but now they could think of little to say. He motioned for his boys to come closer to the camera so he could study their haircuts. "You look nice," he said. "Grown up."

 Read the rest of the story at the Washington Post.