Overview
- U.S. District Judge Randolph D. Moss on March 9 temporarily halted key parts of a February 6 interim final rule that was set to take effect the same day.
- The blocked rule would have cut most appeal-filing deadlines from 30 to 10 days, required automatic dismissal unless a BIA majority accepted a case within 10 days, and allowed dismissals before transcripts or records were prepared.
- Moss found the Justice Department likely violated administrative law by skipping public notice-and-comment, concluding the changes threatened meaningful review at the Board of Immigration Appeals.
- Legal-aid groups including Amica Center, Brooklyn Defender Services, the Florence Project, HIAS and the National Immigrant Justice Center brought the suit, while DOJ argued the changes targeted a severe immigration-court backlog.
- In a separate decision, the Seventh Circuit vacated Chicago District Judge Sara Ellis’s broad injunction restricting federal enforcement, calling it overbroad and constitutionally suspect and underscoring limits on district-court oversight.