James McHenry

James McHenry was appointed Chief Administrative Hearing Officer (CAHO) in January 2021, after previously working for the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) in multiple capacities. He began his legal career with EOIR in 2003 through the Attorney General’s Honors Program, serving as a Judicial Law Clerk and, later, Attorney Advisor. Subsequently, he worked for the Office of the Principal Legal Advisor (OPLA), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Department of Homeland Security (DHS) as an Assistant Chief Counsel and, later, as a Senior Attorney where he served as a lead attorney for national security, denaturalization, and gang cases, anti-human trafficking operations, and worksite enforcement matters. He also served a detail as a Special Assistant United States Attorney for the Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney’s Office, Northern District of Georgia. From 2014 to 2016, he served as an Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) in the Social Security Administration. He returned to EOIR in 2016 as an ALJ in EOIR’s Office of the Chief Administrative Hearing Officer (OCAHO). He later served as a Deputy Associate Attorney General in the Office of the Associate Attorney General. He served as EOIR’s Acting Director from May 2017 to January 2018 and its permanent Director from January 2018 to January 2021.

CAHO McHenry earned a Bachelor of Science from the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service, a Master of Arts in political science from the Vanderbilt University Graduate School, and a Juris Doctor from the Vanderbilt University Law School.