Immigration Policy Tracking Project

An Overview of Trump 2.0 Policies: Executive Office for Immigration Review Procedures

This outline offers an overview of Trump 2.0 policy actions relating to the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR). The purpose is to pull together in one document significant EOIR policy changes compiled by the Tracking Project to allow a more holistic understanding and analysis of the new policies.

This outline covers the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR). The principal immigration components of EOIR are the immigration courts and the Board of Immigration Appeals, which adjudicate individual immigration cases and claims.

Each policy listed below is hyperlinked to specific entries on the IPTP website, all of which are continually updated and annotated. For fuller information on any item listed in the outline, click the links or search by entry ID# in the IPTP search bar. Feedback is welcome via IPTP.feedback@gmail.com

Managerial and personnel changes

The Trump administration immediately fires the highest-ranking civil-service appointed agency officials, without articulated cause other than the authority of the President. See ID #1426.
EOIR terminated and continues to terminate immigration judges and supervisory judges at a rapid rate. See ID #1541.
EOIR Acting Director issues a memo justifying the firings as a necessary response to the Biden administration’s hiring practices. See ID #1579.
EOIR Acting Director asserts that job protections for agency executives and judges are not constitutional and warns that it will not defend those protections against legal challenges. See ID #1564.
EOIR issues a final rule rescinding minimum qualifications for “temporary immigration judges” and allowing the Director to hire any attorney for the position without any requirement for prior immigration experience. EOIR announces plans to use military lawyers instead of immigration professionals to serve as temporary judges. See ID #1969 and ID #1841.

Immigration Court proceedings

EOIR Acting Director chastises immigration judges for having a bias in favor of respondents and against DHS. See ID #1838. EOIR leadership emphasizes limits on adjudicators' discretion to respond to "particularly sympathetic or unsympathetic allegations" and directed that immigration judges are not to feel pressure from the media, “public clamor,” “partisan inquiries,” or outside groups. See ID #1937.
EOIR Acting Director rescinds long-standing rules prohibiting DHS from engaging in enforcement activities in or near immigration court space. See ID #1466 and ID #1883.
EOIR permits immigration judges to accept oral motions from DHS to dismiss or terminate cases, without waiting for additional documentation or briefing from respondent’s counsel. See ID #2021 and ID #1883.
Immigration judges are no longer permitted to inquire of DHS whether it intends to exercise “prosecutorial discretion” and intends to proceed or not. EOIR Acting Director deems the prior authority as pressuring DHS to not prosecute. See ID #1470.
EOIR Acting Director rescinds guidance for immigration judges concerning respondents with limited English. Prior guidance had instructed judges to ensure respondents receive in-court interpretation in their preferred language and have reasonable access to out-of-court translation services for courtroom applications, case-related documents, and legal resources. See ID #1519
EOIR leadership adopts measures instructing judges to move cases faster and criticizing judges for not being efficient and/or for indulging respondent’s dilatory behavior.
- EOIR Acting Director issues guidance on when continuances are acceptable, reminding judges to be vigilant about respondents' strong incentive "to abuse continuances" and use them as a dilatory tactic. See ID #1508.
- EOIR Acting Director issues directives restricting immigration judges from using “administrative closure” (that served as a scheduling tool), which EOIR Acting Director deems an “unmitigated disaster.” See ID #1688.
- EOIR Acting Director chides judges for not completing asylum cases within 180 days, suggesting that judges too often find “good cause” to continue a case and directing that cases be completed within 180 days "to the maximum extent practicable." See ID #1506.
- EOIR Acting Director instructs immigration judges to complete as much of a case as possible before granting a change of venue to a new court location. See ID #1709.
EOIR changes court rules to make it more difficult for respondents to seek relief from removal. For example,
- EOIR expands the use of “dedicated dockets,” which place respondents on a faster track for a hearing and on appeal, without taking account of counsel availability and other services that were part of the original process for selecting dedicated docket locations. See ID #1930.
- Immigration courts no longer accept a respondent’s change-of-address form without a zip code, and staff may no longer look up and enter zip codes. See ID #1560.
- EOIR restricts use of “status dockets,” a scheduling tool that judges use to monitor whether developments in a respondent’s case outside immigration court (such as adjudication of an immigrant visa petition or ruling in a criminal appeal) might affect the pending immigration proceedings. See ID #1636.
- EOIR requires parties to file any pleadings or applications sooner (one month rather than two weeks) in advance of their merits hearing, thereby shortening the time available to prepare or obtain counsel. See ID 1563.
- EOIR creates special procedures to speed up how quickly represented non-detained cases should be processed and heard. See ID #1203.
- Immigration judges should no longer try to accommodate respondents’ or witnesses’ requests for virtual (or in person) hearings. See ID #1622.
- EOIR’s filing fees payment portal is made mandatory for all filers without addressing circumstances where a respondent may not be able to make electronic payments. See ID #1987.

Appeals and agency precedents

EOIR Acting Director critiques Board of Immigration Appeals, asserting that the court management system adopted during the Obama administration was dysfunctional, opaque, and undermined the agency’s integrity. See ID #1460.
EOIR Acting Director provides guidance to immigration judges on how to interpret Board of Immigration Appeals precedents, critiquing “conflicting” precedents with which the current administration has expressed disagreement (referring to administrative closure and domestic violence asylum claims). See ID #1839.
The size of the Board of Immigration Appeals is reduced from 28 to 15 members notwithstanding backlog of case. See ID #1674.

Representation

EOIR Acting Director reinstates restrictions on pro bono representation adopted during the first Trump administration, which included admonitions to judges not to show bias in favor of pro bono attorneys, not to “pressure” attorneys to do pro bono work, and not to treat pro bono representation as reducing an attorney’s ethical or professional responsibility. See ID #1469 and ID #1232.
EOIR Acting Director restricts programs to provide pro bono services and education, including directing federally-funded legal service providers to stop work on legal aid programs, DOJ taking steps to defund those programs, and condemning the Office of Legal Access Programs as “wasteful” because it delays proceedings and increases government costs. See ID #1489, ID #1492, and ID #1505.
EOIR Acting Director prohibits use of Friends of the Court (a program designed to assist pro se respondents in the courtroom), ID #1509, and truncates use of Child Advocates in cases involving unaccompanied minors. See ID #224, ID #1488.
EOIR Acting Director allows ICE attorneys to appear in court without identifying themselves on the record, a departure from long standing practice. See ID #1858.
EOIR Acting Director ramps up profile of Anti-Fraud Program, urging employees to identify fraud and take action against the “fraudulent activities” of attorneys. See ID #1511.
EOIR Acting Director establishes guidelines for agency personnel and stakeholders for future stakeholder engagements, characterizing stakeholders as using skewed terminology, being motivated by self- or financial-interests, and taking inconsistent and sometimes insincere positions. See ID #2017.

Significant changes in agency operations

EOIR Acting Director takes control of court rules (specifically, the Immigration Court Practice Manual and the BIA Practice Manual) to recreate the “Policy Manual” from the first Trump administration and centralize editorial and policy authority over court rules in the Director’s office. See ID #1462.
EOIR creates new filing fees for asylum and TPS, as required by the OBBBA, and substantially increases other filings fees, asserting that it now has statutory authority to "set fees to ensure full cost recovery." EOIR also imposes restrictions on fee waivers based on the OBBBA. See ID #1943; ID #1247, ID #1487, and ID #1910.

Changes restricting asylum

EOIR Acting Director authorizes judges to reject (“pretermit”) asylum cases without holding a hearing and to take “all appropriate action to immediately resolve cases” on their docket. See ID #1676.
EOIR Acting Director reinstates procedural and substantive restrictions on asylum, such as rejecting ‘incomplete’ applications (even those treated as complete and referred to EOIR by DHS), directing judges to adjudicate asylum claims within 180 days, and permanently stopping the asylum “clock” (for accruing time to qualify for work authorization eligibility) during appeals and under other circumstances. See ID #1507 and ID #1226.
The Attorney General reinstates restrictive legal standards on asylum, functionally rejecting domestic violence as grounds for asylum and limiting families as a “particular social group” for asylum purposes. See ID #1948 and ID #1949.

Changes affecting children

EOIR Acting Director removes child-friendly practices and guidelines designed to make court proceedings more fair for children. See ID #1471.
EOIR Acting Director reverses policy to encourage the participation of Child Advocates and imposes new restrictions on such advocates. See ID #224, ID #1488.

OCAHO Discrimination cases

DOJ moves to dismiss with prejudice a lawsuit against Space X for discriminatory hiring practices against immigrants that was pending before EOIR’s Office of the Chief Administrative Hearing Officer. See ID #1591.

October 2025