A wave of asylum seekers entering Canada this year has exacerbated a backlog of refugee claims that the government is struggling to manage, leaving tens of thousands of people stuck in bureaucratic limbo even as they try to build new lives.

Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Board says it has a backlog of 40,700 cases. More than 10,000 asylum seekers have crossed illegally into Quebec from the United States since July alone. But the board has the money and staff to process just 24,000 cases a year, meaning that many people will have to wait around 16 months for their case to be heard.

“The strain on the organization to handle this many people’s hearings is enormous,” Shereen Benzvy Miller, the head of the board’s refugee protection division, told a parliamentary immigrations committee this month.

“The math is clear,” she added. “Unless you put more resources to this problem, then it takes longer time to schedule, so there will be longer wait times.”