More than 8 million asylum seekers and other migrants will be living inside the U.S. in legal limbo by fall — a 167% increase in five years, according to internal government projections obtained by Axios' Stef Kight.

• Why it matters: That's up from about 3 million in 2019 — a sign of how the underfunded, outdated U.S. immigration system can't keep up with new border surges.

The backlog has left millions of people living under threat of deportation.

• The data show that while the backlog has exploded as President Biden has struggled to deal with the unprecedented crush of migrants from around the world, millions already were in the U.S. during the Trump administration.

🧮 By the numbers: At the end of the 2023 fiscal year, more than 6 million people were on what officials call the "non-detained docket."

• The government projects the total will grow to 8 million by Oct. 1, according to Homeland Security documents sent to Congress.
• That includes people who have been ordered to be deported, or who don't have final decisions from U.S. officials on their asylum or other immigration cases — but who aren't being held in the limited detention space that's available.
• Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has about 40,000 detention beds.

An estimated 2 million of the migrants in the backlog likely will be high-priority cases — mostly those who have orders to be deported to their home countries, and some with criminal records or pending criminal charges, according to the documents.

• Republicans, led by former President Trump, have zeroed in on the release of migrants who have recently crossed the border as a national security danger, and have highlighted crimes committed by immigrants in the U.S.

🏛️ Between the lines: The Biden administration repeatedly has asked Congress for more money to address the border — to no avail. Republicans — egged on by Trump, who wants to campaign on the issue — recently killed a bipartisan border deal months in the making.

• As Republicans continue to demand more detentions and deportations, ICE is having to make plans to cut back.

Meanwhile, thousands more desperate people cross the border every day.

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The timelines of three of the four criminal cases against former President Trump are now up in the air, casting doubt on the likelihood their trials will even begin before November, Axios' Dave Lawler writes.

• Why it matters: Trump's legal team has employed delay tactics to push legal proceedings beyond the 2024 election. If he wins the presidency before standing trial, he could escape prosecution altogether.

The one criminal case on track to start well before November — the hush money trial in New York — widely seen as the weakest of the four.

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This winter has been anything but ordinary, featuring sizzling heat waves more typical for midsummer than late February, along with flooding rains in the East, a dry and mild Midwest, and a fusillade of atmospheric river storms hitting the West Coast, Axios' Andrew Freedman writes.

• Why it matters: This year's meteorological winter, which comprises December, January and February, looks like the Lower 48's warmest on record.

Many cities in the northern tier of the country busted their previous records for their warmest winter, according to preliminary data.

• This includes the Twin Cities, where the season is being referred to as the Lost Winter, due to the mild temperatures and lack of snowfall.

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The oldest sitting U.S. presidents:

1. President Biden took office at 78. Now 81, he'd be 82 on Inauguration Day 2025 — and 86 at the end of a second term.
2. Ronald Reagan took office at age 69. He was 77 at the end of his two-term presidency.
3. Donald Trump, 77, was 70 at the start of his term and 74 at the end. If he wins in November, he'd be the oldest person ever inaugurated (78 — and 159 days older than Biden when he took the oath).

The bottom line: Either Biden or Trump would be the oldest president entering a second term.

• Go deeper: Presidents by age at inauguration ... Share this story.

Both the S&P 500 and the NASDAQ stock market indexes closed at record highs yesterday.

• It was the S&P 500's 15th record close of 2024 and the tech-heavy NASDAQ's second record in two days, MarketWatch notes.

🥊 Reality check: Even AI is unlikely to drive a repeat of the past decade's performance, The Economist's new cover story warns:

• "Under realistic assumptions about what will happen to valuations, interest and taxes, to generate even modest real equity returns of 4% a year over the next decade, America's firms would need to increase their underlying profits by around 6% a year, close to their best ever post-war performance. No wonder Warren Buffett ... sees 'no possibility' of super returns for his fund."

Stat du jour: Open AI CEO Sam Altman, 38, is worth at least $2 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, which is valuing his fortune for the first time.

• That doesn't include any stake in OpenAI (recently valued at $86 billion), Bloomberg reports: "Altman has repeatedly said that he does not own equity in the company. Rather, much of his traceable wealth is in a web of VC funds and startup investments, and is set to grow with the initial public offering of Reddit, where he's among the largest shareholders."

Replacing the cabinet's Department of Health and Human Services with a "Department of Life" is part of an anti-abortion agenda that allies of former President Trump are pushing for a second term.

• The eye-catching term is buried in the Heritage Foundation's 920-page "Mandate for Leadership" — published last year as part of Project 2025, aimed at giving Trump a head start on policy and personnel if he wins in November.
• N.Y. Times columnist Carlos Lozada surfaced the idea this week in "What I Learned When I Read 887 Pages of Plans for Trump's Second Term."

Why it matters: Project 2025 wants HHS to reject "the notion that abortion is health care," and adopt a mission of "furthering the health and well-being of all Americans 'from conception to natural death.'"

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An oral historian, a civic designer and the head of a nonprofit focused on bringing dignity back to politics are among the new class of fellows supported by Emerson Collective, the organization founded by Laurene Powell Jobs.

• The fellows are all local leaders with fresh ideas on uplifting their cities and states, AP reports.

🌱 In Powell Jobs' words, they're "horticulturalists of hope."

• Oral historian Francine D. Spang-Willis will spend the next year interviewing people with unique and deep perspectives on the Crazy Mountains, near Livingston, Mont., in hopes of generating strategies to steward the landscape.
• Civic designer Rosten Woo will use the funds to create an atlas of civic institutions in Los Angeles where he lives and works.
• Nonprofit leader Tami Pyfer will spread the word about her organization's new method of measuring the amount of contempt or dignity embedded in speech — the Dignity Index.