Appendix D: Evidence and Evaluation

EOIR and DOJ are committed to informing immigration-related policies and programs with rigorous, transparent, and independent research and data. The Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act of 2018 (Evidence Act) requires the Department to publicly describe future plans and current capacity to conduct evidence-building activities across three reports: an Evidence-Building Plan (or “Learning Agenda”), an Annual Evaluation Plan, and a Capacity Assessment for Research, Evaluation, Statistics, and Analysis.

Per the DOJ Strategic Plan, “The Learning Agenda is a plan for addressing important evidence gaps related to the Department’s strategic goals and objectives. It is built around a set of priority questions that can be answered through rigorous evidence building, including research, evaluation, statistics, and analysis. The evidence built around each one of these questions will advance the Department’s ability to effectively achieve its strategic goals and objectives, both in the short term and in the long term.”

The Learning Agenda is published every four years as part of the Department’s Strategic Plan.  The Learning Agenda is a plan for addressing important evidence gaps related to the Department’s strategic goals and objectives. It is built around a set of priority questions that can be answered through rigorous evidence building, including research, evaluation, statistics, and analysis. The evidence built around each one of these questions will advance the Department’s ability to effectively achieve its strategic goals and objectives, both in the short term and in the long term.

One of the priority questions related to DOJ’s Strategic Goal 5: Administer Just Court and Correctional Systems is specifically about identifying potential technical innovations for immigration courts, and EOIR has led the development of an evidence-building plan to address this question. Specifically, EOIR’s priority question is “What technical innovations in courtroom proceedings more broadly can be adapted into the immigration context?”

The evidence-building plan calls for reviewing how other court systems create efficiencies so that EOIR can provide a better “customer” experience for the stakeholders who interact with the immigration courts and the BIA. As a department component, EOIR is unique in many ways. Not only is EOIR comprised of trial courts and an appellate body whose decisions are subject to legal review by the Attorney General and reviewing federal courts, but the members of the public who come before its courts are noncitizens whose rights may differ from those of citizens, who may or may not be represented by counsel, who may or may not speak or read English, who may or may not be detained at the time of their proceedings, and who may or may not stay in the same geographical location throughout their proceedings. This multitude of factors is not replicated elsewhere in the Department. Moreover, EOIR is an Executive Branch entity that another Executive Branch entity appears before as a party to proceedings. DHS litigates before EOIR’s courts, and yet EOIR relies upon DHS data to initiate proceedings. EOIR must not engage in prohibited ex parte communications when sharing data with or receiving data from DHS.

In addition to the Learning Agenda, DOJ produces two other types of documents required by the Evidence Act: An Annual Evaluation Plan (AEP) and a Capacity Assessment for Research, Evaluation, Statistics, and Analysis.

The AEP, produced every year, describes the significant evaluation activities DOJ expects to launch each fiscal year and documents DOJ’s major ongoing evaluation activities. EOIR has an ongoing evaluation, described in the Department’s AEP for FY 2023, that involves assessing the impact of remote adjudication (e.g., video teleconferencing) on immigration courts’ case backlog and case completion rates.

The Capacity Assessment, like the Learning Agenda, is integral to DOJ’s Strategic Plan released every four years. The Capacity Assessment examines the coverage, quality, methods, effectiveness, and independence of DOJ’s statistics, evaluation, research, and analysis efforts.  As a participant in the Department’s Capacity Assessment for FYs 2022-2026, EOIR identified several opportunities for expanding its capacity for research, evaluation, statistics, and analysis, including conducting a remote adjudication study, building the court location model, updating and expanding the AMICUS and Language staffing models.