EOIR Launches Electronic Filing Pilot Program

FALLS CHURCH, Va. – The Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) this week launched an electronic filing pilot program at the San Diego Immigration Court, marking the first phase of the EOIR Courts & Appeals System (ECAS) initiative.

ECAS is part of an overarching information technology modernization effort at EOIR. Its goal is to phase out paper filing and processing, and to retain all records and case-related documents in electronic format. Once fully implemented, ECAS will further enable the timely, fair, and uniform adjudication of immigration cases across the agency.

“After 16 years of inexcusable delays, I am proud that EOIR’s dedicated work over the past year has culminated in the piloting of a comprehensive electronic filing and case management system,” said EOIR Director James McHenry. “With this important initiative, EOIR joins other court systems in the U.S. that have long provided such capabilities. ECAS will aid the parties and assist judges in hearing cases expeditiously and fairly, and will further augment EOIR’s efforts in tackling the pending case backlog.”

ECAS is expected to benefit EOIR’s adjudicators and staff, as well as, the legal representatives and respondents who appear before EOIR’s courts and Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) through cost and time savings from the electronic filing and remote records retrieval capabilities it will support.

This pilot program is available, on a voluntary basis, for legal representatives who practice before EOIR in the pilot locations and will test the ECAS functions that facilitate electronic filing and document storage for cases filed with the immigration courts and BIA. During the next few months, the pilot program will expand to immigration courts in Atlanta; Denver; Charlotte, N.C.; Baltimore; and York, Pa.; as well as the BIA. The program will extend to all remaining immigration courts in 2019.

To learn more, visit EOIR’s website: https://www.justice.gov/eoir/internet-immigration-info.

— EOIR —