Executive Office for Immigration Review EOIR

Immigration judges were once part of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the same agency that prosecuted immigration cases. In January 1983 the Justice Department separated them into a new Executive Office for Immigration Review to give the adjudication process more independence. When the INS was abolished in 2003 and its enforcement functions moved to the Department of Homeland Security, the immigration courts stayed in Justice.

EOIR operates more than sixty immigration courts staffed by several hundred immigration judges, who decide whether noncitizens charged by DHS are removable from the country and whether they qualify for relief such as asylum, cancellation of removal, or adjustment of status. Appeals go to the Board of Immigration Appeals, whose decisions can be reviewed by the federal courts of appeals. The Attorney General can take any Board case and decide it personally, setting binding precedent.

Because immigration judges are Justice Department employees rather than independent judges, critics across the spectrum have proposed turning the immigration courts into an independent Article I court. The courts carry a backlog of several million cases, with wait times of years. In 2025 the department dismissed a significant number of immigration judges, changed hiring rules, and authorized military lawyers to serve as temporary immigration judges, changes supporters said would speed deportations and critics said undermined due process.