The Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) is an agency within the Department of Justice. EOIR’s immigration judges conduct administrative court proceedings in immigration courts located throughout the nation. They determine whether foreign-born individuals—whom the Department of Homeland Security charges with violating immigration law—should be ordered removed from the United States or should be granted relief from removal and be permitted to remain in this country.
On Friday, July 11, 2014, the Department of Justice published an interim rule that amends EOIR regulations by empowering the agency to appoint a number of temporary immigration judges, as officials struggle to deal with the large number of young immigrants pouring over the southwest border. The agency had announced, on Wednesday, July 9, 2014, that it would prioritize those young immigrants’ cases and reassign judges to hear them. This means that other pending cases may have to be rescheduled.
The interim rule specifies that the agency should select former immigration judges, judges who are employed within or retired from EOIR, administrative law judges from other executive branch agencies, or lawyers with at least 10 years of experience in immigration law.