Notice to Appear (NTA)

What It Means

The Notice to Appear is DHS's Form I-862 and serves as the charging document that commences formal removal proceedings under INA section 239. An NTA must specify the nature of the proceedings, the statutory provisions alleged to have been violated, the factual allegations against the respondent, the time and place at which proceedings will be held, and the consequences of failing to appear (including in absentia removal under INA section 240(b)(5)). The Supreme Court's 2018 decision in Pereira v. Sessions and 2021 decision in Niz-Chavez v. Garland held that a valid NTA for purposes of triggering the "stop-time rule" for cancellation of removal must contain the time and place of the hearing in a single document, invalidating the previous DHS practice of issuing incomplete NTAs and later supplementing with a separate hearing notice. USCIS, ICE, and CBP are all authorized to issue NTAs under 8 CFR 239.1, and the issuance of NTAs for certain USCIS benefit denials was expanded by the June 2018 USCIS NTA memo and further modified by subsequent policy. Once an NTA is filed with the immigration court, EOIR docketing triggers the formal proceedings; the respondent's first appearance is a master calendar hearing where pleadings are taken, followed by individual merits hearings for contested cases. The EOIR system has a pending NTA backlog exceeding 3 million cases as of recent TRAC data, with average case completion times running several years. Failure to appear without cause results in an in absentia removal order and a 10-year bar on most forms of discretionary relief.

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