DOJ Limits Immigrants’ Options to Fight Deportation Orders (1)

The Justice Department is largely cutting off an avenue for challenging immigration court orders, a move that helps the Trump administration reduce case backlogs and speed up deportations.

The department’s Executive Office of Immigration Review released a regulation Thursday that overhauls the Board of Immigration Appeals, giving its members discretion over which cases to review while summarily dismissing others. DOJ “has reconsidered the Board’s role as an appellate tribunal,” the rule said.

Immigrants’ rights advocates immediately raised due process concerns about the regulation. The immigration review office insists the changes are necessary to address a ballooning backlog of cases.

“The Board is at a point where, even were it to have additional resources and better management, without significant reforms, it would not be able to keep up with incoming filings while tackling the backlog in any meaningful way,” the regulation says.

The immigration appeals board had a caseload in fiscal 2025 more than five times higher than a decade before, it said. The changes, which are set to take effect next month, include dismissing all appeals unless a majority of board members vote to consider it.

Immigrants can then “seek Federal court review expeditiously, rather than potentially waiting for years for a Board decision that in the vast majority of cases would affirm the underlying Immigration Judge decision,” the regulation says.

Under federal immigration law, deportation orders become final when the Board of Immigration Appeals dismisses an individual’s case.

“This raises serious due process concerns,” said Johnny King, an immigration attorney and former US Citizenship and Immigration Services counsel. “This administration’s position is essentially: No—you’re being removed.”

Greg Chen, senior director of government relations for the American Immigration Lawyers Association, described the rule as a fundamental change in how the system operates.

“The Justice Department has stripped the courts of their role as fair and neutral arbiters,” Chen said. “It’s reshaping how immigration courts function.”

He warned that the rule would shift pressure onto the federal judiciary.

“If cases are dismissed at the board level, people will be forced to file appeals directly in the federal courts,” he said. “Those courts could be swamped because the BIA is relinquishing its core role of reviewing appeals.”

Courts are already inundated with other litigation stemming from the administration’s immigration policies, including habeas petitions from people in detention.

The DOJ rule is almost certain to face legal challenges itself when it takes effect, King said.