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EOIR Strategic Plan

EOIR Strategic Plan

Appendix E: EOIR’s Agency Priority Goals

Goal Statement

DOJs Agency Priority Goal for DOJ Strategic Goal 5: Administer Just Court and Correctional Systems is Improving Efficiency in Immigration Adjudication. The Justice Department is committed to ensuring the fairness of and improving the efficiency of the immigration court system. By September 30, 2023, EOIR was expected to: (1) increase the number of case resolutions by 10% relative to the FY 2022 baseline number of case completions (368,897); and (2) reduce the vacancy gap for immigration judges to 5% from a FY 2021 baseline of 12%. EOIR achieved both of these targets. It achieved 646,428 case resolutions for a 75% increase in case resolutions and 0% IJ vacancy rate by September 30, 2023. 

Problem to Be Solved

At the end of FY 2022, the Immigration Court System had over 1.78 million cases pending and at the end of FY 2023, the backlog of pending cases grew to over 2.64 million cases due to record numbers of receipts.

What Success Looks Like

Maintaining a fair and efficient immigration court system with enough adjudicators and support staff to hear, complete, and process more cases in a timely manner.

Tracking the Goal

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Goal Strategies

Goal – Case Resolution Increase (Case resolution increase is defined as the percentage increase in initial case completions, subsequent case completions, administrative closures, and off-calendared cases, above those recorded in the previous year.)

  • Strategies:
  1. Increase adjudicatory capacity, allowing for more bandwidth to hear and resolve cases.
    1. Actions – Pursue robust hiring strategy for line Immigration Judges (IJs); increase capacity for supervisory IJs to adjudicate immigration court cases; pursue opportunities for other EOIR adjudicators to be temporarily detailed to adjudicate immigration court cases; promote opportunities for non-traditional IJ hires (re-employed annuitant, temporary IJ).
    2. External Factors that Impact Goal Achievement – EOIR requires sufficient hiring authority and budgetary resources to attract a broad and qualified pool of applicants for these positions.
      1. Mitigation Strategy – Focus on hiring efforts, increase and improve communication about immigration judge vacancies, dedicate an EOIR team to the IJ hiring process.
  2. Improve docket management.
    1. Actions – Within the non-detained docket, focus court resources on completing those cases ripe for adjudication and taking action on those appropriate for other resolution; provide additional training for IJs to continuously improve skills in adjudication and docket management; continue efforts to make information about proceedings more accessible for non-citizens; work with DHS and private bar to find solutions that will improve docket efficiencies.
    2. External Factors that Impact Goal Achievement – EOIR must first focus resources on priority dockets and an incoming volume of these cases which EOIR cannot control. If those cases take too much adjudicatory bandwidth, it will be challenging to focus on the remaining portion of the pending caseload.
      1. Mitigation Strategy – EOIR will identify resources that can be more quickly reallocated, allowing the resource level to flex up or down so that they can be adjusted as needed to accommodate available adjudicators.
  • Strategies:
  1. Pursue a robust hiring strategy for IJs.
    1. Actions – Continue efforts to update and improve the IJ advertisement and publicization of information regarding the IJ position; increase and improve communication about immigration judge vacancies; dedicate an EOIR team to the IJ hiring process.
    2. External Factors that Impact Goal Achievement – Attracting a sufficiently broad and qualified pool of applicants for these positions.
      1. Mitigation Strategy – EOIR has recently reviewed and updated advertisements to remove unclear language that may be confusing to applicants or lead to fewer applications. EOIR also has updated internet materials to create greater interest. EOIR will seek additional improvements. EOIR will also continue outreach to increase awareness of IJ job postings in the broader immigration community, including posting to or through appropriate listservs and speaking engagements at IJ alumni networks.
  2. Improve the internal processes associated with hiring.
    1. Actions – Designate a dedicated leader to focus on IJ hiring, clearly delineate responsibilities for internal processes to find and eliminate any unnecessary steps or delay and designate a team of individuals who will focus on the supporting steps associated with the processing of applications.
    2. External Factors that Impact Goal Achievement – Requirement for other DOJ components to assist with certain parts of the clearance and onboarding process.  If those other components are overloaded, it may affect the time to hire for IJs.
      1. Mitigation Strategy – Communicate clearly with DOJ partners (OARM and SEPS) about expected workload in advance so that they can best manage resources.

Going Forward

By September 30, 2025, EOIR will: (1) increase the number of case resolutions by 8% relative to the FY 2023 baseline number of 646,428 case resolutions; (2) maintain the vacancy gap for immigration judges at 5% or less; and (3) ensure that 100% pro bono rooms have VTC capability, including new immigration courts.