DOJ Interim Final Rule: Appellate Procedures for the Board of Immigration Appeals
The Department of Justice has published a new Interim Final Rule, Appellate Procedures for the Board of Immigration Appeals, in the Federal Register. The rule is set to be effective on March 9, 2026.
The rule purports "to streamline administrative appellate review by the Board of Immigration Appeals (“Board” or “BIA”) of decisions by Immigration Judges by making review of such decisions on the merits discretionary, by setting appropriate times for briefing in cases that are reviewed on the merits, and by streamlining other aspects of the appellate process to ensure timely adjudications and avoid adding to the already sizeable backlog at the Board."
Together, these changes will make it much more difficult for the decisions of immigration judges to be appealed.
As the American Immigration Council writes in a recent review of the Interim Final Rule, "the new BIA interim final rule seems tailor-made to advance the Trump administration’s mass deportation agenda. It marks a fundamental shift away from appellate review as a meaningful safeguard from errors and further erodes the limited due process protections that remain in the immigration court system, all with a clear goal of accelerating removals."
