Three New Board of Immigration Appeals Members

The Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) announced the appointment of Michael P. Baird, Sunita B. Mahtabfar, and Sirce E. Owen to teh Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA). The announcement includes biographical information on the new BIA members.

As Suzanne Monyak for Law360 (registration required) reports, “The U.S. Department of Justice has tapped three former immigration judges to the immigration courts’ appellate board, including one judge with a nearly 99% asylum denial rate, bringing the board to full capacity after the Trump administration expanded it. . . .

The new hires bring the BIA to a full 23 members, several months after the DOJ expanded it from 21. That expansion had marked the second time that the Trump administration had increased the size of the BIA, having added four members back in 2018.”

KJ