He's one of the "dreamers."

They're the undocumented immigrants -- some say illegals -- who come to the United States as children, grow up here and dream of someday calling it home. Like other dreamers, this twenty-something Mexican immigrant made a life here, married a U.S. citizen and led an otherwise lawful life the past two decades.

A routine traffic stop changed all of that, and now he's one of the thousands being targeted for deportation. There are more than 3,500 immigration cases pending in Buffalo and Batavia.

"President Obama is on pace to remove 4 to 6 million people, nearly half of the nation's undocumented population," said Matthew L. Kolken, one of the region's most prominent immigration lawyers. Many of the people awaiting court action are not being held in a detention facility. But more and more, immigrants like the young Mexican being held in Batavia are gaining the spotlight.

Not only are they at the core of a large-scale deportation effort by the Obama administration, they are waiting months, sometimes years, to get their legal challenges heard.

So far this year, cases in Buffalo's immigration court have taken from start to finish an average of 284 days, according to a research center that tracks immigration cases. That waiting period is down slightly from last year but up dramatically 3/4 about 80 percent 3/4 from the low of 158 days in 2006.

"The time has at least doubled," said Sophie I. Feal, supervisory immigration attorney at the Volunteer Lawyers Project in Buffalo.

Here in Buffalo, the problem has been aggravated by the retirement of one of Buffalo's two immigration court judges and the illness of one of Batavia's two judges. It's not uncommon, Kolken said, to now wait a year between court appearances and several years for a final hearing or trial.

He's fond of repeating the legal maxim, "justice delayed is justice denied" and is quick to offer anecdotes of clients who suffer the consequences of delay after delay. "It's akin to trying to eat an elephant one bite at a time and the elephant keeps growing," he said of the court's attempts at managing the growing backlog of cases.

The backlog is not confined to Buffalo and Batavia.

Nationwide, the number of active immigration cases reached a new all-time high of 285,526 in July, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University.

The research center also identified increases in the backlog of cases and the time it takes to complete them.

Even more important perhaps, the center found only 8 percent of the nation's caseload is made up of "criminal" cases -- cases based on criminal activity or activity in violation of national security.

In Buffalo, the percentage of criminal cases is about 11 percent.

By contrast, the majority of Buffalo's caseload -- 88 percent -- involve individuals charged with less serious immigration violations. They range from entering the country illegally to entering legally but overstaying their visas.

"They're pretty clogged," Susan Long, director of the records center, said of the courts in Buffalo and Batavia. "And with judges down, they're even more clogged."

One of the reasons the courts are clogged is the people being targeted by immigration investigators.

More and more, they seem to be noncriminals.

Kolken said most of his clients -- he has about 100 pending immigration cases-- have a clean record except for their undocumented status.

He pointed to a 30-year-old woman who arrived here as an 18-year-old, overstayed her visa and eventually married a U.S. citizen. Federal agents picked her up on a Greyhound bus last year and immediately began efforts to deport her.

The woman plans to fight her deportation, but Kolken said she won't get another day in court -- her initial appearance was earlier this year -- until next August. "It may be 2014 or 2015 before she gets a hearing," he said of his client.

Feal told the story of a young Caribbean immigrant who came here illegally as a 10-year-old boy.

Ten years later, he's facing deportation from the place he considers home and permanent separation from his wife, a U.S. citizen.

"There's some compelling cases out there," Feal said. "Not all of them are bad apples."

Court officials acknowledged the temporary loss of judges here but declined to comment on possible remedies to the current backlog.

A spokeswoman for the Executive Office for Immigration Review, the U.S. Justice Department agency that oversees the courts, said the agency is subject to a hiring freeze so new judges are out of the question.

One possibility, she suggested, would be the assignment of a temporary judge in Buffalo or Batavia.

The agency "constantly monitors its caseload nationwide and shifts resources to meet needs in the most efficient possible manner," said Kate Sheehey, deputy counsel of legislative and public affairs.

Nationally, the Obama administration took steps this month to curb the backlog and, at the same time, ease tensions with Hispanic leaders upset with its immigration record.

"He's incredibly hypocritical," Kolken said of Obama.

Kolken said Obama preached pro-immigrant reform as a candidate but has overseen a massive strategy of deportation as president.

In the first 2 1/2 years of his presidency, the Obama-led government deported 1.06 million immigrants. That compares with 1.57 million immigrants deported during George W. Bush's entire eight years.

"There's no question Obama is being muscular in his enforcement," said Long, an associate professor of managerial statistics at Syracuse University.

In his defense, Obama is taking steps to ease the backlog. One of them involves the use of greater discretion by Immigration & Customs Enforcement prosecutors.

The goal, according to the government, is to ensure that resources are spent on the highest immigration enforcement priorities.

Feal welcomes the change -- she thinks it may help "dreamers" who want to stay here -- while Kolken views it as a Band-aid approach.

What it does do, maybe for the first time, is raise the question of targeting. In short, who should the government go after?

Is it the immigrant convicted of assault and robbery, or is it the immigrant who simply overstayed his visa?

"I think the jury is still out," Long said of the changes announced by the government. "The big question is still targeting."

pfairbanks@buffnews.comnull