Note that the words deportation and removal are synonymous (see glossary below for more details). Were you ordered deported by an immigration judge? If the answer is yes, you will need to file a "Notice of Appeal" (Form EOIR-26) with the Board of Immigration Appeals ("BIA") no later than 30 days from the date of the decision of the immigration judge. (If you missed the 30-day deadline or a long time has passed since then go to the page entitled "Motions to Reopen" for more information.) If you do not file a Notice of Appeal at all, or if you file the Notice of Appeal after the 30-days have expired (unless you qualify to file a motion to reopen or a motion to reissue) you will not be able to prevent federal agents from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement ("ICE") to order you to appear for your deportation, or (even worse) from visiting you at your home in the early hours of the morning to arrest and deport you from the United States. The most important thing for you to keep in mind therefore is to ensure that your Notice of Appeal arrives at the BIA's address location (shown below) within the first 30 days.  You must also take great care to count the 30 days accurately, commencing with the first day of the 30-days as the next day following the date of the order of deportation. [**See also important Caveat below about the common mistake of improper counting of the 30 days] When you mail the EOIR-26 to the BIA, you must also attach a filing fee of $110.00 by check or money order payable to the "United States Department of Justice".  If you are an indigent, you  will be attaching a fee waiver application on Form EOIR-26A (available from this website in the Special Alerts page) to avoid paying the filing fee.  But be aware however that if you chose to file a fee waiver application, you should file Forms EOIR-26 and EOIR-26A within the first few days from the order of the immigration judge. Why? Because if the BIA does not approve your fee waiver application it will send back to you the entire package in the mail. This can cause you to lose crucial time because you will still be required to resend the EOIR-26 with the $110 filing fee within the same 30-days, or risk that it will arrive at the BIA after the deadline expires. In addition, you must attach a copy of the order of the immigration judge to the EOIR-26 and you must also write a concise statement therein detailing the reasons why you are filing the Notice of Appeal. All of these and other requirements are more fully explained in the referenced forms.                                      We think that you should not file the EOIR-26 yourself just the same as we would if you were planning to perform surgery on yourself when you are not a trained surgeon. Your chances of prevailing will improve considerably if you hire a deportation appellate lawyer to represent you on appeal.  But if you cannot hire one immediately you should then file the EOIR-26 yourself (following these guidelines and those in the Form EOIR-26) to ensure that your Notice of Appeal is filed, and you will have more time to hire a lawyer thereafter because the most important filing on appeal will be the appellate brief, generally filed within the first 120 to 150 days from filing the Notice of Appeal. After you have secured the timely filing of your EOIR-26 with the BIA, the next thing you should do is to hire the appellate lawyer (usually a different lawyer that the one who represented you, if one did, before the immigration judge in the deportation proceedings). There are sound, resonating common sense reasons for hiring a new lawyer and one that is an expert in prosecuting deportation appeals as described in part, below.   **Caveat: many affected noncitizens mistakenly file the EOIR-26 one (1) day too late because they mistakenly interpret the 30 day timeline period as one that is measured from month-to-month (e.g., from July 21 to August 21, when instead, the 30th day from July 21 is August 20.)  Do not make that costly mistake yourself. Make sure that you count the actual days by starting with the day immediately after the day of the decision, as the first day of the 30 days, so that you will always count the 30th day accurately (e.g., in the case scenario above, July 22 is the first day and August 20 is the last day for filing it timely because July has 31 days).  This is the address and the building that houses the BIA, 5107 Leesburg Pike, Suite 2000, Falls Church, VA 22041 Read below the reasons why it is in your best interest to hire a deportation "appellate" lawyer (or appeals' lawyer) to prepare your appeal. There are sound reasons why you should hire an appeals’ lawyer to represent you in your deportation appeal rather than the same immigration trial lawyer you had during the deportation proceedings before the immigration judge. While there are numerous excellent immigration attorneys that exhibit professional high standards every day in the immigration courts in every city of the United States, a great majority of them limit their law practices to the immigration courts only. In fact, there is enough consensus among appellate experts and legal professionals that a competent experience deportation lawyer (whom is not an expert in prosecuting deportation appeals) will likely recommend to the noncitizen client to hire an appellate lawyer instead of handling the appeal him or herself.  Even assuming that the trial lawyer handles his or her own appeals, involving an appellate deportation lawyer in the process will very likely improve the chances of prevailing on appeal by infusing a different set of eyes in the case and providing a fresh different look at the appellate strategies of the case. The first common sense reason to hire an appeals' lawyer is because the job of the appellate lawyer requires assembling different skills than those demanded from a trial lawyer and also because their performances are directed to wholly different audiences. For example, the immigration trial lawyer is typically called to convince the immigration judge that his client meets all of the requirements that the law provides for obtaining an immigration benefit (e.g., asylum, adjustment of status, cancellation of removal, a waiver application, etc.,) and he also wants to convince the judge to exercise favorable discretion to grant his client’s application for relief. In contrast however, the appellate lawyer concentrates in pointing to the appellate judges the errors that were committed during the deportation hearing before the immigration judge. This includes not only the errors from the immigration judge but also from the lawyers representing the government and the noncitizen, which in the absence of those errors, the outcome of the case may have been different. Likewise, the job of the immigration judge is significantly different than the job of the appellate judges.  An immigration judge for example admits and excludes evidence, hears the testimony of the witnesses, evaluates the witnesses' credibility by focusing his attention on the degree of specificity of the testimony and by observing their court demeanor, listening to their tone of voice and the assertiveness of their responses, the consistency of their testimony compared with other evidence presented, and ultimately, he or she decides the case based on the quality (and amount) of the evidence and testimony the judge heard during the trial.   In contrast, the appellate judges only review the underlying deportation case for the errors that may have been committed during the deportation proceedings. Assuming errors were committed, the appellate judges will take a second look at them to determine whether those errors may have played an important role on the outcome of the case. This is because errors that were not important to the outcome of the case are considered "harmless" and have no impact on the outcome of the appeal. And you should know that errors from all participants are not uncommon in all trials and everywhere regardless of the type of cases (criminal or civil) but those are not the errors that matter for purposes of appeals.  Only the ones that may have altered the final outcome of the case are the important ones that matter in an appeal, which in legal parlance, they are referred to as "material errors".  Appellate judges will focus their attention on the existing record that was created during the deportation proceedings to examine those errors. However, appellate judges will not consider claims and/or evidence that was not previously presented to the immigration judge for his or her consideration.  The appellate judges focus their attention not with the emotions that may have been invoked or developed for the immigration judge's consumption but with the type of errors that may have been committed during the deportation hearings, and whether, in the absence of those errors, the final outcome of the case may have been different. But appellate judges will not examine the entire record of proceedings before the immigration judge looking for such errors. It is up to the appellate lawyer to point any such errors to the appellate judges. Because they depend on the appeal lawyers to point the errors that were committed during the deportation proceedings to them, the appellate judges will never get the opportunity to review such errors if the appeal lawyer does not point out the errors to them. This means that if an important error was committed by the noncitizen's own trial deportation lawyer but the error is not presented to the attention of the appellate judges, that important error will go unnoticed and will not be considered because it is not the job of the appellate judges to find it. Can you think of a stronger reason to hire a new appellate lawyer?   On appeal you will not get the opportunity to retry your case before the appellate judges, but you will get an opportunity to convince them that important errors of fact or law were committed during the trial stages which, absent the existence of those errors, the outcome of the case may have been different.  You do not have to convince the appellate judges that absent the error(s), you would have won your case.  No.  You only need to establish to them that but for the existence of the error, the outcome "may" have been different.    The second reason to hire an appeals' expert lawyer is (as noted above) because the lawyer’s skills that are required to represent a noncitizen on appeal are different than those required of the lawyer to represent the noncitizen before the immigration judge but also because involving a different lawyer in the case, with deportation appeals experience can only improve the non citizen's chances on appeal. How so?  Well, for starters, appeal judges are not able to hear the testimony of the individual witnesses from their own mouths as the immigration judge did. Instead, because appellate processes are conducted in writing without the parties’ presence, appellate judges have to rely entirely on the appellate lawyer’s ability to narrate the story of the case to them in writing.  That is what deportation appeal lawyers do—i.e., they tell the party's story about the noncitizen and what happened during the proceedings before the immigration judge, which is never fully apparent in the administrative record that was created during those proceedings.  To illustrate this concept better, consider for example that during the deportation proceedings, the immigration judge determines that the noncitizen failed to present enough evidence to convince the judge that the noncitizen was being persecuted in his home country due to political reasons.  In contrast however, the noncitizen claims that he did not file any such documents because he was not informed in advance specifically as to what kind and what amount of evidence was going to be deemed enough to convince the immigration judge that political persecution had taken place.  In other words, it appears that the error in not producing enough evidence on the issue of persecution was not the result of the nonexistence of that evidence but that it was not timely presented to the immigration judge for consideration.   The appellate judges will not get to consider the reasons why not enough evidence on the issue of persecution was not presented.  Rather, they will only get to decide whether the documents presented were indeed enough to satisfy an objective and reasonable immigration judge. The appellate judges (as well as the immigration judge in this example) will never get to hear the real reason for why not enough documents were presented on that issue, because nobody has argued those reasons for consideration. All the appellate judges get to review in this hypothetical case scenario is the sufficiency of the evidence presented to the immigration judge. Thus, if the judge properly determined that there was not enough evidence to convince him, there is a strong likelihood that the appeal (at least on that issue) will not succeed. The appellate judges will never get to review the hidden reasons mentioned in the example—unless the noncitizen’s appellate lawyer presents them with those reasons for consideration in an appropriate motion for remanding the case to the immigration judge.    Consider another example, where the immigration judge determines that a request for a continuance to introduce important evidence (witnesses or documents) will not be granted despite the existence of good cause.  The judge reasons that the request should have been made much earlier than when it was, given that the evidence relied upon to seek the continuance existed long before the request was made.  As a result of the denial of the continuance, the noncitizen’s chances to prevail diminished considerably because the hearing will go forward without the evidence that would have been presented if the continuance had been granted.  The immigration judge, finding no good reason to grant the continuance at this late stages denies it. In contrast however, the noncitizen claims that he passed that information to his lawyer’s assistant months before the court hearing but for some unknown reason, the assistant never gave that information to the lawyer causing the request to be made to the judge late on the date of the trial of the case.  Here again, nobody argued to the immigration judge as to the real reason why the motion to continue was not timely filed and the administrative record of the deportation case will not contain such information.  Thus, the appellate judges (as well as the immigration judge in this hypothetical) will never get to hear that argument because it has not been presented—unless the expert appeals lawyer presents this argument on appeal by requesting remand of the proceedings so that these facts may be presented to the immigration judge for consideration.  A motion to remand while the case is on appeal is a very powerful tool within the expert appeals lawyer's arsenal of arguments.   Yet another common occurrence is when the immigration judge determines that evidence presented by the noncitizen will be excluded by the judge because the evidence is in a foreign language that was not properly translated to English, or not properly authenticated as required by the regulations. But in contrast, the noncitizen claims that she provided those documents to the lawyer’s office months in advance so that there was sufficient time to translate and file them with the immigration court. Here again, the real reason why that evidence was not considered by the immigration judge will never be heard by the appeal judges unless it is presented to the attention of the appellate judges in a proper motion for remand.  In sum, because the appellate judges reviewing determinations of the immigration judge will never get to "hear" the noncitizen's claims (in the hypothetical examples shown above) unless the appellate lawyer properly alerts them, then the likelihood that the noncitizens in those instances will prevail on appeal will be substantially diminished.  These are just a small example of the type of errors that an appeal's lawyer will have to concentrate in, if he or she is to succeed in establishing an effective representation of the noncitizen on appeal. Follow @IAW2011 If you need help with preparing, filing and prosecuting a deportation appeal with the BIA, or a Petition for Review with the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals we offer you our expert deportation appeals' services since 1997 at very affordable costs in legal fees. Call us toll free at (888) 450-2501, or email us now with your questions at cs@immigrationAppealWorks.org. Our Practice is Exclusively Dedicated to Filing and Prosecuting "Appeals" to the Board of Immigration Appeals from Orders of Deportation from Immigration Judges, as well as to Filing and Prosecuting "Petitions for Review" to the Federal Circuit Courts of Appeal from Orders of the Board of Immigration Appeals  Immigration AppealWorks® is exclusively an immigration appellate law practice. This means that all of our time and effort during every day of the week is dedicated to preparing and filing "Notices of Appeal" and appellate briefs or motions with the Board of Immigration Appeals ("BIA"), and/or in preparing and filing "Petitions for Review" and appellate briefs or motions with the Federal Circuit Courts of Appeals.  An appeal arising from an order of an immigration judge is referred to as an "administrative" appeal because it is presented for decision to a federal administrative agency (i.e., the BIA). An appeal arising from an order of the BIA is referred to as a "judicial" appeal (or Petition for Review) because it is presented for decision to a Federal Circuit Court of Appeals.  Accordingly, when a noncitizen is placed in removal proceedings before an immigration judge, the noncitizen will be afforded the procedural right to one (1) level of "administrative" review before the BIA and one (1) level of judicial review before the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals. Although a noncitzen can also file a petition for review known as "petition for certiorari" or "writ of certiorari" before the Supreme Court of the United States (as the very last level of judicial review) the Supreme Court does not have to hear the case unless it elects to do so.    This also means that before an order of deportation from an immigration judge becomes final and operative against the noncitizen, the noncitizen will have the right to exercise these two (2) levels of review of the decision of the immigration judge as a procedural "check" to make sure that the immigration judge's decision was in fact correct.  Since 1997, our appellate practice has been exclusively dedicated to filing administrative and judicial appeals from orders of deportation (and removal or exclusion) issued against noncitizens in immigration courts across the United States. If you or a family member have been ordered deported by an immigration judge, we will file the EOIR-26 Notice of Appeal before the BIA in a timely manner and will prosecute the appeal process to completion no matter where you or your family member live in the United States. And if you or a family member have received a final order of deportation from the BIA, we will file the Petition for Review with the corresponding Federal Circuit Court of Appeals in the circuit that has jurisdiction over the city where the immigration court that issued the order of deportation was located, anywhere in the United States. We offer noncitizens a simplified internet electronic process where all of the documents that are needed to represent them are exchanged by use of scripted emailings in a safe, secured and expeditious manner no matter where the noncitizen resides in the United States. Moreover, the noncitzen will have the ability to receive documentary proof of filing with the BIA or the Federal Circuit Courts electronically, almost instantly after we file it.   Appellate Experts If you have been ordered deported by an immigration judge recently (or your deportation order was appealed to the BIA but denied recently), you have probably spent a good amount of time in looking for a qualified professional to represent you in your immigration appeal needs. The chances are that if you researched the internet or telephone book looking for a professional to help you with your appeal, you came across numerous law offices and immigration lawyers throughout the United States that advertise themselves as able and willing to handle deportation appeals. But it is also likely that these professionals offer in addition other immigration legal services that are not exclusively related to the filing of deportation appeals. Common sense dictates therefore that these professionals do not exclusively devote their legal services to a deportation appellate practice, as we do.   Becoming an expert in filing and prosecuting immigration appeals (as it would be the case in becoming an expert in any other profession or skill) requires a continuous commitment not only in staying informed over continuing changes in immigration law but also in developing and maintaining a well-structured appellate methodology for choosing the most viable issues, and for preparing and prosecuting the appeals. Common sense dictates that the more legal services that an immigration lawyer offers to its clientele, the more likely it is that his or her appellate practice's time and effort is being divided amongst the many other legal services the lawyer is providing. After all, a professional's intellectual capacity, attention and concentration is being tagged, divided or shared among the various services that the professional offers. To become and to remain an expert on filing and prosecuting deportation appeals requires no less than a continuous full-time commitment to the appellate practice.  No part-time involvement will do.    At Immigration_AppealWorks® we offer expert immigration appellate services to noncitizens or their attorneys and these services are exclusively limited to filing and prosecuting immigration appeals before the BIA, and filing and prosecuting motions to reopen before immigration judges or the BIA.  As a result, AppealWorks® is able to deliver in each appeal case we take, all of the appellate expertise we have gained from preparing and prosecuting exclusively deportation appeals and motions to reopen since 1997.      We also file and prosecute Petitions for Review before the United States Courts of Appeals in all federal circuits of the United States. We do not offer any other immigration legal services (as most immigration lawyers and firms do) such as filing applications for permanent residence, naturalization, asylum, non-immigrant work visas, or filing applications for any other numerous immigration benefits that are available to the public.  We limit our services exclusively to the preparation and filing on behalf of your clients (or, on your behalf if you are a noncitizen who has received an order of deportation from an immigration judge) any direct and timely appeal before the Board of Immigration Appeals or Petition for Review before any federal circuit of the United States. And what is a direct and timely appeal before the BIA? A "direct" appeal refers to an appeal from an original order of an immigration judge determining that the noncitizen is deportable, excludable, or removable from the United States (e.g., determining that the noncitizen is unlawfully present herein). And a "timely" appeal refers to an appeal that is filed within the first 30 days from the order of the immigration judge.  A direct appeal that is filed timely enjoys important legal benefits. First, a direct timely appeal affords the noncitizen involved in the appeal process the benefit of a stay of deportation of the order of the immigration judge (meaning, the order of the immigration judge holding that the noncitizen is deportable cannot be executed by ICE agents during the administrative appeal process).  Second, it allows the noncitizen to continue to apply for and obtain yearly employment authorization documents during the administrative appellate process. And most significantly than all, it will allow the noncitizen to obtain judicial review of the BIA's final administrative order of deportation by a court of appeals of the United States, if the BIA affirms the decision of the immigration judge and the noncitizen must take a second step to protect her rights.  Why is this a significant factor? Well, because administrative agencies (such as the BIA and the Office of the Immigration Judge) are without authority to determine the constitutional validity of the laws they have been delegated to enforce. By this we mean, that neither the Office of the Immigration Judge nor the Board of Immigration Appeals can determine whether a particular rule of immigration law is constitutional or unconstitutional. By law, only the United States Court of Appeals have the exclusive authority to make such determinations. Hence, if an immigration judge rules against a noncitizen (orders that the noncitizen be deported) and on appeal the BIA affirms the decision of the immigration judge, if the noncitizen does not get an opportunity to obtain judicial review of the administrative final order (because the direct appeal was not filed in a timely manner), then a federal court of the United States will never have the opportunity to decide whether the rule of law applied against the noncitizen by the immigration judge or the BIA was in fact validly constitutional because only federal courts can decide the constitutionality of an immigration rule of law, not the agencies.                                                                                                  Example of a Direct and Timely Appeal   If an immigration judge enters an original order of deportation, exclusion, or removal against a noncitizen on September 1, the noncitizen's appeal filed with the BIA on or before October 1, will be considered a timely filed and direct appeal because it was filed within the first 30 days required by the regulations (rules that govern the filing of appeals), after the immigration judge entered the original order of deportation against the noncitizen.  As a result of having filed the direct appeal timely within the 30 days required by regulation, the noncitizen will be permitted to continue to remain present in the United States without any risk of being deported, will be permitted to continue to apply for and receive employment authorization documents for the duration of the administrative appeal process, and most significantly, the noncitizen will be permitted to seek judicial independent review of the administrative final order of deportation before a federal circuit court of appeals.  If, on the other hand, the noncitizen mistakenly files the appeal with the BIA in Falls Church, Virginia, on October 2, rather than on October 1, then, the appeal will not be recognized as a timely and direct appeal and will be dismissed as untimely filed. As a further consequence of the untimely filing, the noncitizen will lose her right to continue to receive employment authorization, her statutory protection from being subject to immediate deportation from the United States and most significantly, will lose also her statutory right to obtain judicial review of the administrative final order of deportation and the right to a decision from a federal court determining whether the rule of law applied to the noncitizen was indeed constitutionally valid.  And that is all what we mean when we make reference to either a direct appeal or a timely appeal.          Is the noncitizen without any recourse if the appeal is untimely filed? Before moving on to another subject, we want to point-out to the reader that in those situations where the noncitizen files the notice of appeal "out of time" (the appeal notice arrived at the BIA late, belated, tardy, etc.) the noncitizen's most likely only hope is to file a "motion to reopen" (fully referred to in substantial detail below in this same page) explaining therein the reasons why (1) the appeal was not filed in a timely manner but you must also explain the reason why it could not have been filed in a timely manner, or (2) that you were unaware that the appeal was not filed in a timely manner (if, for example, you hired a lawyer or non-lawyer to file the appeal timely but he/she failed to do so and you did not know it sooner).  In the latter circumstances, you may be able to file a "motion to reissue" the deportation order so that the time for filing the appeal within 30 days may be reinstated (regained). But in such cases, before you even attempt to file such a motion, here is a big, big CAVEAT for you: noncitizens, by regulation (rule of law), are given one (1) single shot at getting that point across to the Board member who will be deciding the motion to reopen requesting that the appeal be "reinstated", provided the motion to reopen is filed within the first 60 days from the date when it should have been filed.   If the noncitizen does not convince the Board member during that single opportunity the noncitizen is given by law of the reason why the notice of appeal could not have been filed timely, then, the noncitizen has waisted that only one, single opportunity given by law.  Here is an analogy to better explain the concept. To analogize this concept, think of it as if you were placed in a thick jungle in Africa, armed with a single rifle and suddenly you come across a deadly beast, intent in killing you because it is hungry (unless of course you kill it first).  Now consider further that you have been given a single bullet inside that rifle—a true life challenge. My suggestion to you in that case scenario would be that you better aim really, really well at the beast before pulling the trigger and shooting because if you do not hit it the right way, you will not live to tell the story. No different here. You better aim right, or hire a professional shooter—if you are like most people in the fictitious jungle, e.g., you do not feel competent, lucky or confident enough!   Back to the subject of appeals now.  Included among the above referenced appeals are those appeals from a finding of an immigration judge that the noncitizen is deportable, excludable or removable as well as orders of an immigration judge denying applications for relief from removal, exclusion or removal, such as denials of applications for Suspension of Deportation, Cancellation of Removal, Asylum, Withholding and Convention Against Torture (CAT), or denials of applications for waivers of deportability or inadmissibility under sections 212(c), 212(h) or 212(i) among many other forms of relief from removal.  But what does it mean to file an appeal? Filing an appeal from an order of an immigration judge ordering the deportation (or removal, or exclusion) of a noncitizen consists of an administrative reviewing process, conducted by the BIA where the appealing party (nearly always the noncitizen) gets the opportunity to explain to a BIA member (assigned to review the administrative appeal) of the reason(s) why the decision of the immigration judge is incorrect and should be reversed, vacated and/or remanded.                          Point of fact:  You should be aware that although it is a fact that all immigration judges make errors and mistakes when presiding over any deportation, exclusion or removal proceedings—not all of their errors and mistakes are of the type of errors and mistakes that are necessary for the BIA to reverse, vacate and/or remand the case.  [Reverse, vacate and/or  remand (either of them) occurs when—the BIA in reviewing a case on appeal determines that the decision of the immigration judge was made in error and the BIA then first "vacates" the prior order of the immigration judge, meaning it nullifies its effect, and either reverses the decision of the immigration judge or returns the case to the immigration judge to correct it.] But the BIA will not reverse, vacate and/or remand an appeal case even if you prove that the immigration judge made a mistake—unless you can convince the BIA that the outcome of the case would have been different if the error had not been committed by the immigration judge.  To illustrate this better, only those errors that are of significant importance (we refer to them as "material" errors) actually qualify for the BIA to reverse, vacate and/or remand it to the immigration judge. Conversely, if the error (or multiple errors) of the immigration judge in your case, are of the type that after considering them in the best light in your favor, would still not have changed the outcome of the immigration judge's ultimate decision in your case, then, those types of errors are classified as "harmless errors" and those types of errors will not amount to requiring the BIA to reverse, vacate and/or remand the appeal to the immigration judge.  Therefore, the errors of the immigration judge must be of the type of errors that "really" matter in order to compel the BIA to reverse, vacate or remand the decision to the immigration judge for correction.          What goals can be accomplished in filing an appeal?  There are various goals that can be accomplished in filing an appeal from an order of an immigration judge, which are determined by the particularized individual interest of the noncitizen (such as the most immediate goal, which is preventing the decision of the immigration judge from becoming “final”-- because, when you allow the order of the immigration judge to become final there is nothing else that you can do to stop agents from the Department of Homeland Security/Immigration and Customs Enforcement to visit you at home before 6:00 a.m., and take you into custody until they can execute the order of removal from the United States).   There are many other good reasons to file an appeal least of which is the ability to continue being present in the United States legally, continuing to be eligible for employment in the United States for as long as your appeal is pending before a final decision is made in your appeal. But clearly the most evident reason for filing an appeal is to take the opportunity to convince the BIA that it should reverse or vacate the decision of the immigration judge, or send the case back to the immigration court (“remand”) for a new decision consistent with the law as interpreted by the appellate decision of the BIA.  For example, convincing the BIA in your appeal that— had the immigration judge not made the errors he/she made—the outcome or result of your case would likely had been different (e.g., your application for adjustment of status may have been granted instead of denied; or the immigration judge may have been required to consider your applications for relief from deportation instead of finding you ineligible for it, or, the government may not have been able to prove that you were subject to deportation instead of establishing that you were not eligible for any relief, etcetera, etcetera).  In such instances where you convince the BIA member that your case should be remanded to the immigration judge, as a result you would have a new opportunity to convince the immigration judge that you deserve the grant of your application for adjustment of status relief, or the grant of your application for a waiver of inadmissibility, or asylum or the many other applications for relief from deportation, removal or exclusion.   When you consider that the majority of the applications for relief from deportation (exclusion or removal) are denied because they were poorly prepared and presented (meaning, applications that lacked sufficient documentary evidence to establish they warranted approval, or applications that did not establish all of the elements that are required to be proved), the possibility that you could get a second opportunity to present your case anew before the immigration judge should be sufficient reason to make most noncitizens willing and able to file an appeal.     Example of an Application Presented to an Immigration Judge that Fails to Establish all of the Elements that are Required by Law  To convince an immigration judge that the noncitizen deserves cancellation of removal for nonpermanent residents, the noncitizen must establish four (4) different elements (referred to as "statutory" elements because they are the elements of the statute)—and they are: (1) continuous physical presence in the US for no less than 10 years; (2) has been a person of good moral character during those 10 years (3) has not been convicted  of certain eliminating crimes (4) and demonstrates that the removal from the US would inflict exceptional and extremely unusual hardships on the noncitizen's qualified relatives (either US citizens, or lawful permanent residents whom are either parents, spouses or children under 21 years old).  A poorly prepared and presented application for cancellation of removal is one that establishes some, or most, but not all of the four (4) statutory elements.  Most applications of this type are denied because when the application was presented to the judge it did not contain evidence establishing all four statutory elements.   Yet others are denied because even though the applications presented evidence establishing all four elements, the evidence presented in support of one, or more of the statutory elements, was disputed by the US government's attorney, or such evidence was insufficient (not enough evidence presented), or it lacked credibility, or it was biased, etc.   Applications for cancellation of removal for nonpermanent residents are also very demanding because they require supporting documents to prove each and every statement of hardship you want to make. For example, if you want the immigration judge to consider that one of your relatives suffers from a particular serious illness, you cannot establish that fact unless you present a diagnostic letter or report from a medical doctor corroborating the existence of the illness, or you have to present a medical report from a hospital corroborating the medical illness, or you present a detailed report from an insurance company eliciting the existence of the illness in the report.   But you never, never, never rely only on testimony alone (unless the testimony is from the treating physician or other medical expert) to convince the immigration judge that your relative suffers from such illness.  You should know that the immigration judge would make a reversible mistake if he/she credited your testimony alone as sufficient to establish the existence of that fact.   This is a vivid example of the reason why most applications for relief are denied by immigration judges. The applications were poorly prepared and poorly presented to the immigration judge!  However, by no means, is this example the only one reason why these applications are frequently denied. How difficult is to win an appeal? The short answer is that to win on appeal is—very difficult—but not impossible. The long answer is that it depends on numerous factors of which the most frequent ones depend on the magnitude of the errors that occurred during the trial proceedings and the experience of the appellate lawyer in identifying which of those errors involved raise the likelihood of showing sufficient prejudice. In fact, the BIA’s own fiscal released statistics over the number of appeals that are filed in the course of a year in comparison with those that are dismissed, in the end, tells a good part of this story.  But, keep in mind however that the burden of establishing that the immigration judge’s decision is incorrect (i.e., the burden of winning an appeal) is on the appealing party (most generally the noncitizen).   More importantly, keep also in mind that several thousands of appeals are received every month by the BIA but there is only 13 permanent and 5 temporary BIA members to conduct the reviews of those appeals—a very limited number of them indeed handling a very vast number of appeals that are being filed every month. Therefore it is a fact that—if you want to convince the BIA member assigned to your case that the immigration judge's decision is incorrect and should thus be reversed, vacated and/or remanded—you have a very limited amount of time to get that BIA member’s close attention to your appeal—because he/she needs to decide a very large number of them and there is a very limited time that will be dedicated to your appeal. Caveat:  You should know that while the Board does not publish any particular approach on how its members review appeal briefs or motions to reopen or reconsider, logic and experience dictates that the Board would have adopted screeners before the appeals and/or motions get to the Board member assigned to review the merits of the appeal and/or motion.  The screeners are employees of the Board trained in verifying whether a particular appeal brief and/or motion is in strict compliance with all of the regulatory requirements imposed on appeals.  Thus, the screeners would be the very first line of review, which an appeal brief and/or motion would need survive in order to move to the merits step.  Here, in this very first line of review is where most appeal briefs and/or motions get decided.  If they do not comply with all of the regulatory requirements, the appeal brief and/or motion will not move to the merits step and will suffer an early adverse disposition.  And let us be honest.  The most accurate gage as to how likely it may be that an appeal to the Board will be successful (or not) depends for the most part on the "quality" of the performance of both the attorney and the noncitizen during the trial of the noncitizen's application before the immigration judge, as well as, the "quality" of the presentation of the documentation in support of the application for relief.  A thorough and qualitative presentation of a case to an immigration judge is one that has been successful at not only anticipating "all" of the problems that will likely lie ahead during the trial of the application, including the testimony of witnesses and the sufficiency of the supporting evidence but also in preparing for how to successfully resolve these problems in advance.  Frankly, a surprising number of the cases we see in our appellate practice share these common predominant denominators: (a) negligently prepared applications (missing and/or contradictory corroborative evidence, no translations accompanying foreign language documents), (b) negligently prepared witnesses (meaning the witnesses had no idea what to expect from their testifying experience at the witness' stand, or unfamiliarity with the documents presented in support of the application) particularly the star witness (the noncitizen), and (c) cases where it is evident that the attorney did not take the necessary time to scrutinize the case to anticipate all of the problems the case had before the day of the trial date.  Hence, on the day of the trial, these "surprises" inevitably come up during the presentation of the case and the unprepared Captain of the ship cannot stop the ship from sinking.        What is a well-prepared appellate brief? Preparing an appeal from an order of an immigration judge requires that you focus upfront on the issues that matter and that you are able to convince the reviewing BIA member in the first sentences that this is an appeal brief that is worth examining.  Your appeal must strive very hard in facilitating the process of the BIA member’s examination by writing your appellate brief concisely and keeping the BIA member’s interest and attention sufficiently focused on the errors of fact and law of the immigration judge’s decision.  To do this, requires at a minimum an expertise in eliciting the right issues to be raised as well as an ability to artfully illustrate why those errors determined the final outcome of the case.   The writer of an appellate brief must enlist the BIA member’s interest and attention in the appellate issues very promptly, must be extremely accurate in its supporting contentions and citations and must logically persuade him or her into yielding agreement.  As a caveat: if the noncitizen does not file a "timely" appeal (meaning an appeal that it is filed within the 30 days time limit from the date of the judge's decision), then that order becomes final and ICE agents can effect the deportation of the noncitizen at any time after the expiration of the time for filing the appeal—anytime after the 31st day from the date the immigration judge ordered the noncitizen deported. Glossary:  Throughout this page and this website we use the words "deportation" and "removal" interchangeably because these words are synonymous in immigration parlance. Each word refers to the same act of ordering that a noncitizen be deported, or, the act of actually (physically) deporting a noncitizen from the United States. As you will notice, there is a significant legal difference between having been ordered deported and having been actually (physically) deported. The most significant of these differences since 1996 is that a noncitizen that has been physically deported from the US, faces severe criminal and civil consequences for returning to the US illegally (without inspection); and if the noncitizen is seeking to return legally, he or she will face severely difficult and costly hurdles to overcome before receiving approval to return. Noncitizens whom have been ordered deported, but have not yet been removed, stand on a more favorable legal position than their physically deported counterparts.    We also used the term "noncitizen" throughout this website instead of using the term "alien" and we do so primarily because of the negative connotation that the latter term has received in the past and because the term "noncitizen" better describes whom otherwise has been referred to for years as an "alien".  How? well, an alien is usually referred to as a person whom is born in a "foreign" country and comes to the United States, while that is not totally accurate. This is because a person may be a noncitizen of the United States and still be one who was born in the United States (e.g., a person whom is born in the United States but later abandons this country's citizenship to adopt the citizenship of foreign country and later returns to the United States as a noncitizen).       See SPECIAL ALERT section for noncitizens who applied for legalization under the Amnesty program or the Special Agricultural Worker ("SAW") program under the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 ("IRCA") for important information.  This information may play a significant role in any appellate administrative and judicial review proceedings pertaining to such noncitizens. See also the SPECIAL ALERT section for information pertaining to noncitizens who are now in criminal proceedings, or have an existing criminal record after having suffered criminal convictions for various crimes (including misdemeanors).   This information will play a significant role in the planning and strategizing the defense of a noncitizen who is a defendant in criminal proceedings, and, his or her defense in immigration proceedings before an immigration judge, almost always following a criminal conviction.     2945 Townsgate Road, Suite 200, Westlake Village, CA 91361  All Mailings Address:  P. O. Box 3664, Westlake Village, CA 91359-0664 Toll Free Phone (888) 450-2501 - Toll Free Fax (866) 569-1898  General Email: cs@immigrationappealworks.org Follow @IAW2011