Original Date Announced

EOIR announces the release of a comprehensive Policy Manual web page, providing access to the BIA, Immigration Court, and OCAHO Practice Manuals, as well as to policy memoranda and other resource documents. Revisions to the BIA and Immigration Court manuals are made, and material is added for the Office of the Chief Administrative Hearing Officer. The current version of the Policy Manual page is available here.

Among the changes in agency practice captured in the consolidated manual:

• The default filing deadline for briefs and evidence in a non-detained merits hearings has been changed from 15 days to 30 days prior to the hearing, thus shortening the period to submit briefs and evidence.
• If the respondent is represented, amendments to applications for relief, additional supporting documents, updates to witness lists, and other such documents must be submitted at least 30 days in advance of the hearing.

(Note that these changes were largely unannounced and were not highlighted in the public release of the manual. The manual may authorize or contain other substantive changes in procedures that have not yet been identified or might depend on further analysis and implementation. Also note that, despite its considerable length, the Policy Manual has been made more difficult to search than its predecessor Practice Manuals, both of which had word and citation indexes and the option to download a searchable document.)

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