Practice resources
Search immigration practice advisories, sample filings, manuals, brief banks, and government guidance from trusted practitioner sources.
Overview of recent EOIR policy changes allowing dismissal or pretermission of some defensive asylum applications without a hearing, with guidance for practitioners representing people in removal proceedings.
This practice advisory, authored with our partners at the End SIJS Backlog Coalition, Children's Immigration Law Academy, National Immigration Project, and Safe Passage Project, offers strategies at every stage of an SIJS client’s removal proceedings to advocate against the client’s removal and to preserve the record for appeal, including:
This practice advisory, created by The End SIJS Backlog Coalition, is intended to help practitioners navigate removal proceedings for clients with pending or approved SIJS. It offers strategies at every stage of an SIJS client’s removal proceedings to advocate against the client’s removal and to preserve the record for appeal. Section II covers strategies for pleading to the Notice to Appear. Section III discusses challenging the Department of Homeland Security’s evidence of removability. Sectio
On January 21, 2025, the Trump administration expanded the scope of expedited removal to its statutory maximum, to include certain noncitizens not admitted or paroled who cannot prove they have been continuously present in the United States for at least two years. DHS, Designating Aliens for Expedited Removal, 90 Fed. Reg. 8139 (Jan. 24, 2025). Several days later, DHS issued a memo directing DHS attorneys to consider moving to terminate ongoing removal proceedings in order to pursue expedited re
New EOIR regulations published in 2024 now allow immigration judges and the BIA to administratively close or terminate removal proceedings in a variety of scenarios. These regulations permit—and sometimes require—administrative closure or termination even where the Department of Homeland Security does not agree. In the current hostile enforcement environment, and in light of the rescission of formal guidance regarding prosecutorial discretion, these regulations are an important tool for advocate
A stay of removal prevents the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) from deporting a noncitizen from the United States while they continue to challenge their removal order or pursue an immigration benefit or humanitarian protection. This practice advisory discusses the law, procedure, and practical tips for seeking a stay of removal from DHS, immigration judges, the Board of Immigration Appeals, and the U.S. courts of appeals.
In Department of State v. Muñoz , 602 U.S. 899 (2024), the U.S. Supreme Court concluded that a U.S. citizen and her noncitizen spouse had no access to judicial review of a consular officer’s denial of an immigrant visa. The Court held that a U.S. citizen has no “fundamental liberty interest” i n her spouse’s admission to the United States. This practice advisory, by the American Immigration Council, the International Refugee Assistance Project, and the Consular Accountability Project, is intende
The National Immigration Project, Amica Center (formerly CAIR Coalition), and the ACLU of Virginia sued the Washington Field Office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on behalf of nine individuals whom ICE arbitrarily detained for months after they won immigration relief protecting them from deportation to their countries of origin where they face persecution, torture, or death. The case, Rodriguez Guerrera v. Perry , No. 1:23-cv-1151 (E.D. Va.), was brought in the U.S. District Court
In a case brought in Federal District Court in Rhode Island an abused spouse whose VAWA self-petition had been approved challenged USCIS’s revocation of her approved petition. The self-petitioner was divorced from her abuser and remarried after filing the self-petition but before the self-petition had been approved. The court’s ruling allows the self-petitioner to fully litigate her challenge the USCIS’s revocation of her self-petition due to remarriage in Federal District Court. The court’s rul
On July 29, 2024, an important new Executive Office for Immigration Review final rule, Efficient Case and Docket Management in Immigration Proceedings, goes into effect. Among other things, the rule codifies the authority of immigration judges and the Board of Immigration Appeals to administratively close and terminate removal proceedings. This practice alert describes this rule’s origins and summarizes its key provisions.
NIWAP participated in an amicus brief on writ of certiorari to the US Court of Appeals of the Third Circuit to ensure that courts review BIA hardship determinations for immigrant victims of domestic violence seeking cancellation of removal under VAWA. SCOTUS ruled in favor of Wilkinson, holding that the application of the exceptional and extremely unusual hardship standard to an established set of facts is a mixed question of law and fact that is reviewable under 1252(a)(2)(D). This ruling gives
Friendly House Et Al., V. Michael B. Whiting Et Al ., (June 11, 2010) United States District Court Arizona. Legal Momentum, recruited by the ACLU, MALDEF, The National Immigration Law Center, and the Asian Pacific American Legal Center (represented by Manatt, Phelps, and Phillips) to organize a brief articulating immigrant women’s perspective amicus in support of plaintiff’s motion for a preliminary injunction to stop implementation of key portions of Arizona’s anti-immigrant legislation SB 1070