On February 6, 2025, Sirce Owen, Acting Director of the Department of Justice’s Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR), issued a memorandum rescinding an EOIR memorandum dated June 6, 2023, Language Access in Immigration Court (DM 23-02), which provided guidance to immigration judges (IJs) on how to ensure that every noncitizen who appears before an immigration court has a “full and fair opportunity to present their case,” including being provided with interpretation and translation into the noncitizen’s preferred language.
Among other things, the 2023 memorandum directed IJs to familiarize themselves with resources available to noncitizens at detention facilities; for example, language assistance services at the facility’s library. The 2025 memorandum said that the job of an IJ “is not to serve as a roving inspector of detention facility libraries operated by the Department of Homeland Security, and directing [IJs] to engage in extrajudicial factfinding about such libraries was grossly improper.”
The 2025 memorandum states that EOIR “recognizes the importance of language access and interpretive services” for those appearing in its proceedings and “is committed to providing professional interpretive services in all appropriate cases.”