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How does the US track attendance at immigration court hearings?
Executive summary
The U.S. does not have a single, reliable, system-wide field that records whether noncitizen respondents actually showed up for immigration court hearings; the GAO found EOIR’s case management system lacks that specific function and EOIR instead calculates an “in absentia” rate from decisions, not direct attendance logs [1]. EOIR offers public case status tools (ACIS) and publishes in-absentia statistics and workload reports, but those do not substitute for systematic, hearing-level attendance tracking across the 3.5–3.7+ million backlog of cases [1] [2] [3].
1. The missing checkbox: EOIR’s system doesn’t systematically record attendance
A 2025 GAO audit concluded the Executive Office for Immigration Review’s (EOIR) case management system lacks a dedicated function to systematically record whether respondents appeared at hearings; court officials told investigators existing fields could be repurposed but there is no built-in, consistent attendance field [4] [1]. As a result, EOIR cannot directly report a clean numerator/denominator of attended hearings across the system and relies on indirect measures instead [1].
2. How EOIR measures no-shows today: in absentia orders and decision-based rates
Rather than a raw attendance log, EOIR (and GAO’s analysis) uses in absentia removal orders as the operational signal that a respondent failed to appear; EOIR’s published “in absentia rate” is calculated by dividing the number of in absentia removal orders by the number of immigration judges’ initial decisions resolving cases [1]. That approach measures outcomes (orders entered in the respondent’s absence) not whether every scheduled hearing was actually attended, and GAO’s work shows the rate varies by court location, representation status, and demographics [1] [5].
3. Public-facing tools: ACIS provides case status but not definitive attendance confirmation
The Automated Case Information System (ACIS) allows the public and parties to check basic case status online and find hearing information, and the Justice Department’s EOIR pages link to court locators and hearing details [2] [6]. However, ACIS and EOIR’s public materials warn not all case information is displayed and that local courts should be contacted for clarification; available reporting does not show ACIS contains a standardized attendance field that is aggregated for systemwide reporting [2] [6] [4].
4. Why this matters: scale, legal consequences, and due-process concerns
The backlog in immigration courts reached multiple millions of pending cases—GAO cited about 3.5 million pending as of July 2024 and other reporting noted roughly 3.7 million by end of 2024—so incomplete attendance tracking occurs amid enormous caseload pressure [1] [3]. Missing reliable attendance data matters because failure to appear can trigger in absentia removal orders under the Immigration and Nationality Act, and courts and stakeholders say missed appearances can reflect barriers like language, transportation, or fear of detention, not solely willful evasion [5] [1].
5. Consequences for transparency and policy-making
GAO’s finding that the system lacks a specific attendance function limits EOIR’s ability to produce clear oversight metrics and constrains policymakers’ understanding of why in absentia orders occur at different rates across courts; EOIR does publish workbooks and decision statistics but those derive from decisions rather than attendance logs [1] [7]. Congressional and stakeholder debates have tied variations in in absentia rates to factors such as expedited dockets, notice problems, and resource constraints—issues raised in CRS and GAO material [5] [1].
6. What EOIR publishes and what it does not (per available reporting)
EOIR posts workload and adjudication statistics and Federal Register notices and runs ACIS for case lookups [7] [8] [2]. Available sources do not mention a single, standardized, system-wide attendance field that EOIR uses to directly log hearing appearances across all courts, nor do they show an automated national attendance-tracking feed beyond in absentia counts derived from judge decisions [4] [1] [2].
7. Competing perspectives and practical workarounds
Court officials told auditors that other fields in the case management system could be used to indicate appearance status, suggesting local workarounds are possible; advocates and oversight bodies, however, argue those stopgap measures are insufficient for systematic reporting and oversight [4] [1]. EOIR emphasizes existing public case-status tools and decision statistics, while GAO presses for a more robust, auditable attendance metric to inform policy [6] [1].
Limitations: reporting in these sources focuses on EOIR and GAO findings up through mid-2025 and on system design and published statistics; available sources do not provide a step‑by‑step technical specification of EOIR’s case management database fields or any post‑audit remedial implementation timeline [1] [4].