An appeal as it relates to immigration is the process that comes after appearing in proceedings which give a decision against them. In an appeal you go before a higher office or before a higher court to request that the decision of the immigration officer or of the judge be reviewed. You also have to show the mistakes that were done by the adjudicator that merit the reversal of the decision in the specific case.

Normally an appeal has to be filed within 30 days of the decision either with the Administrative Appeals Office (AAO) or with the Board of Immigration Appeals. It is very important and the timeframe is very serious. If the appeal is not received within 30 calendar days, the higher court is not going to consider the appeal.

The first thing that has to be done on appeal is to file a notice of appeal. It is a document that gives other parties in the case notice that you are going to or you plan to appeal the case and it is the document that has to be filed within 30 days. It has to be sent either to the Board of Immigration Appeals or to the Administrative Appeals Office. You also have to send a copy to the other party, either to the trial attorney if it’s a case in court or to the immigration office that is adjudicating the case. After you file a notice of appeal within 30 days, if it’s a case in front of the USCIS and you are appealing to the AAO, then you have another 30 days to submit the brief or the additional evidence that you want to submit. If it’s a case before the immigration court and the appeal is being filed with the Board of Immigration Appeals, after you file the notice of appeal you have to wait for the Board of Immigration Appeals to send something called a brief schedule. In the brief schedule, the Board of Immigration Appeals indicates the exact date in which the appeal has to be sent. You also receive a transcript of all the testimony in the case to help you in making the arguments. You can make reference to the record at the time of explaining why the judge made a mistake in the adjudication of the case.

You need an experienced immigration attorney to help in filing a motion or an appeal because this is a very complicated area of the law. Any errors or any mistakes can be very harmful for a case, from the time limits that people have to file the appeals to the addresses where all these documents have to be sent to the actual arguments that are going to be made on the appeal. For example, if a person files an appeal at the wrong time or after the time allowed or even if they send the appeal to the wrong address, it could be very bad for the case. They will lose automatically if the right office does not get the appeal on time. Also, it’s very important to be able to articulate the argument to prove why the lower court or the immigration judge or the immigration officer made a mistake at the time of trying the case. This is something so serious and if not done correctly could have a very bad effect on the case and ultimately could cause a denial of the case.

Every case is different in terms of if you can do anything else if your motion or appeal is denied. You can go to the next higher court, which in this case would be a Federal Court of Appeals, if at some point the Board of Immigration Appeals denies an appeal. If there is a denial of an appeal or a motion to reconsider with regards to a decision from an immigration judge or an immigration officer, you can refile the case again or you can determine whether a federal court would have the jurisdiction to review the decision.

The most crucial thing to know about appeals is that the details are very important. Any detail of the case and any argument that is not made during the appeal is waived. It is vital to have all those details first and make sure that everything is done at the right time and is sent to the right place. Also, you need to make sure that all the arguments that need to be made are presented in the appeal. If not, it would not be possible to argue those issues later on in the case.