BATON ROUGE— Baton Rouge has been in line for an immigration court for more than a year, and administrators this week said it would put a court in the capital city.

Currently, there are three immigration courts in the state located in Jena, Oakdale, and New Orleans. Baton Rouge will make the fourth court. 

Immigration attorney Paul "Woody" Scott of The Scott Law Firm said this installing a new court in the state is long overdue. He said Jena and Oakdale are detained immigration courts serving eight detention centers. On the other hand, New Orleans serves as a non-detained immigration court.

"The New Orleans court actually serves Mississippi into the panhandle of Florida, Arkansas, a lot of Arkansas, the entire state of Louisiana, all the way up into Houston,” Scott said.

According to the EOIR 2024 fiscal year report, nearly 1.8 million cases were added. By the end of the year, there were more than three million cases.

Scott said this newly added court will help address the backlog.

“Most of the people are just waiting for a court date so at least this will open up to get a court date," Scott said. "Just say we go to court today and we’re setting a final hearing for a client. It's usually in 2030 or in the year of 2029.”

Scott said this will not only help address the amount of backlogged cases, but this will make it easier for families having to travel.

“We represent a lot of people here in Baton Rouge that it is hard to get to New Orleans, whether they have little ones they’re taking care of or special needs people they’re taking care of,” he said.

Scott said in his many years of experience and talks with colleagues he believes the court will remain once it's up and running. 

“It’s hard to shut down a court once it’s already started. The reason is there are enough cases to sustain a court right now,” he said.