We should have seen it coming. In 2018 the Attorney General ended the ability of immigration judges to administratively close cases, concluding they had in fact never had such authority. As shocking as that was at the time, we're now seeing pieces of that puzzle were...
About two months ago I received a document called the "BIA Style Guide" in response to a FOIA request and saw multiple references in the Style Guide to something called the "BIA Webpage" which appeared to be an intranet of sorts, with information for BIA employees on...
Every summer, Immigration Judges from across the country gather near Washington, D.C. for a multi-day training hosted by EOIR. These training materials are valuable because they shed light on how judges are being instructed to approach certain legal issues. The 2018...
We just received a final response to our FOIA request for any memoranda or guidance directed to Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) members—and we were surprised by how much was disclosed. Among the newly released documents: BIA Style Manual (Redlined, Redacted) – 242...
Without any explanation, the Department of Justice stopped posting its "Immigration Litigation Bulletin" online in mid-2016. The older versions are online here. The Immigration Litigation Bulletin is a publication by the Department of Justice's "Office of Immigration...
The Department of Justice just can't make up its mind. Removal of the Immigration Judge Benchbook Sometime in April, 2017 the Department of Justice removed the Immigration Judge Benchbook from the internet without any announcement or warning. The benchbook is a...
Sometime in Mid-April, 2017, the Department of Justice removed the "Immigration Judge Bench Book" from the internet. Why? They won't say. We've been trying to figure that out and to reconstruct this book as a resource for practitioners. For years this book had been an...
Here's something fun. Today I received in the mail a response to several FOIA requests I had made. The package contained two previously secret litigation "field guides" for Department of Justice attorneys. I'll be receiving more and will post them here when I do. The...
In litigation over whether the Department of Homeland Security complied with its obligations under the FOIA, the Seventh Circuit this week found that the agency had fallen short in David Rubman v. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services et al. The effect of this...
Everyone knows a job is much easier with the right tools. Right? It's no different with immigration. In immigration court cases, sometimes the biggest hurdles can be cleared by figuring out the right tools to solve the problem. In almost every case an early "problem"...