Sponsors (4)
Introduced March 5, 2026 by Zoe Lofgren · Last progress March 5, 2026
The bill establishes a distinct, better-resourced Immigration Court system intended to speed adjudication, improve recruitment, and increase reporting, but it shifts authority and budgets away from executive oversight and preserves certain procedural limits (including private‑expense counsel), creating risks of uneven resource allocation, reduced hiring transparency, privacy concerns, and continued access-to-counsel gaps for low-income noncitizens.
Immigration courts and the INA gain a clear statutory framework and organizational entries, giving immigrants, lawyers, and agencies clearer rules and administrative structure for adjudication.
People with pending cases and court personnel keep continuity: existing EOIR judges receive interim trial authority and service credit, staff/assets/funding transfer to the new courts, helping proceedings continue without interruption.
Immigration Courts can hire and set pay more flexibly (including veteran preference), improving the ability to recruit and retain staff and judges faster than under competitive civil-service procedures.
Shifting budgetary and operational control away from executive-branch review risks fragmented policy, uneven resource allocation across courts, reduced coordination with DHS/DOJ, and potentially higher costs for taxpayers.
Allowing hiring outside competitive civil-service rules and pay-setting outside standard statutes reduces transparency and open competition, creating risks of favoritism, pay disparities, and weaker personnel accountability.
The statutory 'right to counsel' remains explicitly at private expense, so low-income noncitizens are likely still to lack effective legal representation in removal proceedings.
Based on analysis of 16 sections of legislative text.
Establishes an independent United States Immigration Courts system, transfers EOIR functions to it, and grants new hiring, pay, and budget authorities plus reporting and transition rules.
Creates a standalone United States Immigration Courts system separate from the Department of Justice by moving most EOIR functions, personnel, assets, and cases into a new judicial body. It gives the new Courts independent hiring, pay-setting, and budget authorities, sets an application date and four-year transition for moving current immigration judges into the new system, requires regular reporting and oversight, and updates many immigration statutes to reflect the new court structure and procedures.