EOIR Courts and Appeals System (ECAS)
Investment ID: 011-000003647
Overview
Program Title
EOIR Courts and Appeals System (ECAS)
Agency
Description
ECAS is a program that encompasses multiple applications that are responsible for the day-to-day court, case, and appeals management at EOIR.
Type of Program
Major IT Investments
Multi-Agency Category
Not Applicable
Associated Websites
https://www.justice.gov/eoir/internet-immigration-info
Investment Detail
ECAS capabilities when fully established are expected to:
1) Reduce the data entry burden in the courts by enabling the Department of Homeland Security to transmit all of their approximately 245,000+ Notices to Appear (annually), which initiate court proceedings, directly to the Immigration Courts
2) Allow alien respondents and/or their legal representatives to transmit address changes, motions, filings, and digitized evidence, such as affidavits, electronically
3) Consolidate and store electronic Records of Proceedings (RoPs) in a systematically organized and protected fashion
4) Allow the Board of Appeals access to RoPs and other relevant (but limited) documentation for their case reviews without intruding on Immigration Court staff
5) Provide better visibility of case weighting to assist in case scheduling
6) Convert paper-based information into usable, actionable data for strategic decision-making
7) Enable better management and oversight of government-mandated records retention
8) Create a true back-up for all court case documents
9) Position the EOIR for future organizational changes and realignments
10) Allow EOIR to respond to FOIA requests more efficiently
11) Provide options for continuity of operations when an individual court is affected by inclement weather or other events out of its control
12) Notify law enforcement and Government agencies as to legal status changes in real time
If not approved, EOIR may need to continue adding courtrooms, judges and court administration personnel. At the current rate of case closure, EOIR estimates it would need to hire 42 additional judges to keep up with new NTAs (this does not address the backlog of cases or account for retiring judge replacements), along with associated court administrative, legal, and case processing personnel, as well as leasing additional court space. If we can increase our court processing efficiency by just 3%, we can reduce that number by 9 judges (and associated personnel and space) which is approximately the cost of the envisioned system.
1) Reduce the data entry burden in the courts by enabling the Department of Homeland Security to transmit all of their approximately 245,000+ Notices to Appear (annually), which initiate court proceedings, directly to the Immigration Courts
2) Allow alien respondents and/or their legal representatives to transmit address changes, motions, filings, and digitized evidence, such as affidavits, electronically
3) Consolidate and store electronic Records of Proceedings (RoPs) in a systematically organized and protected fashion
4) Allow the Board of Appeals access to RoPs and other relevant (but limited) documentation for their case reviews without intruding on Immigration Court staff
5) Provide better visibility of case weighting to assist in case scheduling
6) Convert paper-based information into usable, actionable data for strategic decision-making
7) Enable better management and oversight of government-mandated records retention
8) Create a true back-up for all court case documents
9) Position the EOIR for future organizational changes and realignments
10) Allow EOIR to respond to FOIA requests more efficiently
11) Provide options for continuity of operations when an individual court is affected by inclement weather or other events out of its control
12) Notify law enforcement and Government agencies as to legal status changes in real time
If not approved, EOIR may need to continue adding courtrooms, judges and court administration personnel. At the current rate of case closure, EOIR estimates it would need to hire 42 additional judges to keep up with new NTAs (this does not address the backlog of cases or account for retiring judge replacements), along with associated court administrative, legal, and case processing personnel, as well as leasing additional court space. If we can increase our court processing efficiency by just 3%, we can reduce that number by 9 judges (and associated personnel and space) which is approximately the cost of the envisioned system.