U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit Issues Ruling in NAIJ v. Federal Labor Relations Authority

As we have posted previously on the blog, the National Association of Immigration Judges (NAIJ) filed a petition with the Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA) in 2022 seeking to restore its union status. During the Trump administration, the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) that houses the immigration courts within the Department of Justice prevailed in its request to the FLRA to remove the union’s collective bargaining status on the rationale that immigration judges are management officials barred from inclusion in a bargaining unit.

The NAIJ had represented immigration judges since 1971 and regularly spoke publicly about failures in the immigration adjudication system, including the immense case backlog. The Union was certified in 1979.

After the FLRA denied a motion to reconsider filed by the NAIJ, the NAIJ filed a second reconsideration motion. While that motion was still pending, the NAIJ sought review in federal court.

Today the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled against the NAIJ, dismissing its petition for review for lack of jurisdiction. Specifically, the three-judge panel found that the Union’s petition was “incurably premature” because the “second reconsideration motion remained pending . . . when the Union filed the petition for review, rendering the challenged orders nonfinal at the time of the Union’s petition.”

A copy of the decision is available here.

IE