New Developments for Board of Immigration Appeals Decisions

Two important developments are coming your way regarding the publication of Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) decisions.

First, the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) announced on February 9, 2022 that the BIA “will begin transitioning to a new format for unpublished decisions.” According to the EOIR’s press release, which is available here, this “new format is similar to that used for federal court decisions and makes it easier to locate pertinent information.”

Second, a settlement has been reached in a lawsuit titled New York Legal Assistance Group v. Board of Immigration Appeals et al., providing that the BIA will establish an Electronic Reading Room for release of unpublished BIA decisions to the public. AILA members can read more about the stipulation in this lawsuit here. The stipulation follows a decision by the Second Circuit invalidating the DOJ’s longtime practice of not making the vast majority of BIA decisions available to the public. For more on the appeal, see the excellent post by Emily Creighton in Immigration Impact.

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