The Newark immigration court

What is the same as anywhere else

Removal procedure is federal, so the rules that govern Newark are the rules that govern every immigration court:

• Deadlines. Non-detained filings are generally due 15 days before a master calendar hearing and at least 30 days before an individual calendar hearing, responses are due within 10 days, and detained deadlines are set by the judge. Deadlines run in calendar days and the court applies a receipt rule. See the deadlines page.
• ECAS. Electronic filing is mandatory for practitioners of record under 8 C.F.R. 1003.31.
• Address obligations. You must file Form EOIR-33 within five days of any change, under 8 C.F.R. 1003.15(d).
• Appearance. Missing a hearing means an in absentia removal order under INA 240(b)(5)(A).
• Burdens. If you were admitted, DHS must prove deportability by clear and convincing evidence under INA 240(c)(3)(A). You bear the burden on any application for relief under 8 C.F.R. 1240.8(d).
• Fees. Applications and motions that carry a government filing fee are paid through the EOIR Payment Portal, which has not accepted checks since February 23, 2026. Those are government fees, not our legal fees; the schedule is on the EOIR fee page.
• Interpreters. The court provides them for the hearing.

What is different: the Third Circuit

A petition for review from a New Jersey case goes to the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, within 30 days of the final order of removal under INA 242(b)(1), in the circuit where the immigration judge completed the proceedings under 242(b)(2). New York cases go to the Second Circuit; Florida cases go to the Eleventh.

Circuit law matters in removal defense because so much of the doctrine is built out of circuit readings of the same statutory phrases. Two examples from this site: the Third Circuit affirmed the Board's holding that a 237(a)(1)(H) fraud waiver does not reach a separate crime-based ground arising from the same fraud, in Tima v. Att'y Gen., No. 16-4199 (3d Cir. Sept. 6, 2018), 903 F.3d 272; and the Second and Eleventh Circuits have each held that the 90-day motion-to-reopen deadline is subject to equitable tolling, in Iavorski v. INS, 232 F.3d 124 (2d Cir. 2000), and Avila-Santoyo v. U.S. Att'y Gen., 713 F.3d 1357 (11th Cir. 2013) (en banc). We do not publish the Third Circuit's rule on tolling on this page because we have not verified it for publication; we check it before any late motion is filed from a Newark case. The government's forbearance policy while a petition is pending in the Second Circuit is likewise a Second Circuit matter, and we do not publish whether any equivalent exists in the Third.

What is uniform is the deference the courts of appeals owe to the record. In Urias-Orellana v. Bondi, No. 24-777 (March 4, 2026), the Supreme Court held that the courts of appeals apply substantial-evidence review to the persecution determination, reversing only where the record compels the contrary conclusion. That decision binds the Second, Third, and Eleventh Circuits alike, and it makes the record built before the immigration judge much harder to repair later.

Filing a petition for review does not stay removal. INA 242(b)(3)(B) says so, and a stay is sought under the four-factor standard of Nken v. Holder, 556 U.S. 418 (2009). See stays of removal.