The U.S. Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review (“EOIR) announced on May 19 that they had repaired “bugs in their computer systems which hindered or prevented immigration authorities from performing many of their duties. They managed to get their computer systems running again after suffering a “catastrophic hardware failure that had plagued their case management system for deportation cases. In a prepared statement, however, they did note that the Executive Office for Immigration Review continues “recovery efforts for other applications, including e-Registration, an electronic registry used by immigration attorneys to check the status of their clients’ cases.
The temporary bugs had delayed deportation cases, causing some detainees to remain locked up longer than what otherwise would have been the case. As a result, taxpayers would pay greater expenses for these detention cases.
The computer issues caused other problems as well. Judicial clerks could not gain access to court records or create new case files. One saving grace, however, is that the authorities do not believe that they lost any information as a result of the shutdown. “We are happy to announce that the data recovery team was able to recover the data and create new drives for those which had failed, EOIR said in its statement released on May 19. “To date, we have not lost any data, and we are continuing to finalize restoration of those applications most critical to our internal and external stakeholders.
The Shulman Law Group endeavors to ensure its clients be kept abreast of all significant developments relating to the deportation/removal process. Edward Shulman, Esq, founder of The Shulman Law Group, LLC is a national speaker for the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA). AILA is the national association of immigration lawyers established to promote justice, advocate for fair and reasonable immigration law and policy, and to advance the quality of immigration and nationality law and practice. He meticulously follows all of the legal and procedural developments regarding the Department of Homeland Security and the Executive Office for Immigration Review.