New policy will make it tougher for immigrants to appeal deportation

Juan Carlos Chavez, Tampa Bay Times on Feb 13, 2026

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A new federal policy will make it harder for immigrants across the nation with deportation orders to challenge and fight their cases by limiting appeals.

A policy taking effect March 9 will cut the time to appeal from 30 days to 10, giving immigrants and their families less time to hire attorneys and prepare a legal defense.

Under the new rule, appeals would be automatically dismissed after 15 days unless a majority of immigration appeals judges agree to review the case. If they don’t, the immigration judge’s decision would then become final.

The changes apply only to appeals filed on or after March 9 and do not affect pending cases brought in federal court, which operates separately from the immigration system.

According to the Department of Justice, the number of pending appeals rose from 37,000 cases in 2015 to more than 200,000 in 2025. The new policy would help speed up the system and ease the backlog in the appeals process, which could years, the department said.

Only a small number of appeal cases were approved by judges, 123 out of more than 55,000 between 2023 and 2025, according to the Department of Justice. In 2021, the agency increased the number of judges on the Board of Immigration Appeals to 28 to address the backlog and speed up decisions. But last year, Attorney General Pam Bondi reduced the number to 15.

The new policy is tied to tougher Trump administration immigration orders as well as zero-tolerance measures aimed at reducing the number of people and families without permanent legal status in the country.

Last year, a U.S. Supreme Court decision about immigration enforcement allowed federal agents and their partners to conduct large operations or roving patrols that stop people based on their race, language, job or location. A recent U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement memo, meanwhile, permits officers to forcibly enter people’s homes without a judge’s warrant.

The Immigrant Legal Resource Center, a national nonprofit that provides immigration legal assistance and supports immigrant advocates across the nation, criticized the new appeals policy.

“This is especially difficult for those in custody,” the group said in a statement. “It also instructs the appeal court to dismiss most cases meaning that to fight a case, you will need to appeal again to a higher court, which can be very difficult and often costly.”

In early February, a panel of judges on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that immigrants without permanent legal status and people in deportation cases are ineligible for release on bond, regardless of how long they have lived in the United States. Bond had often been granted to those without criminal convictions.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement held nearly 71,000 immigrants in detention centers in the last week of January, according to Syracuse University’s database of federal immigration statistics. The data show that many people have been in custody for at least six months. More than 74% have no criminal conviction and many of those convicted committed only minor offenses, including traffic violations, the database’s operators reported.

Last year, immigration judges ordered the largest numbers of deportations for immigrants from Mexico, with more than 33,000 deported. They were followed by more than 19,000 from Guatemala, 18,000 from Honduras, 14,000 from Venezuela, and 9,000 from Colombia.