The issuance of defective Notices to Appear (“NTA”), the charging document in immigration court, has become a recurrent and systemic failure in the contemporary U.S. immigration system. Under INA § 239(a)(1)(G)(i), an NTA must specify the time and place of removal proceedings. Despite clear statutory language, ICE routinely issues NTAs that omit one or both of these critical details, and thereby undermines the procedural protections Congress intended NTAs to contain as the charging and case-initiating documents for noncitizens in removal proceedings. Courts have recognized that the absence of a statutorily compliant NTA can jeopardize noncitizens’ ability to attend immigration court proceedings. This ICE malfeasance exposes noncitizens to “in absentia” removal orders, which effectively deprive them of notice, due process, and rights guaranteed under federal law and in immigration court. ICE’s practices have generated considerable litigation, including three U.S. Supreme Court decisions in Pereira (2018), Niz-Chavez (2021), and Campos-Chaves (2024). This article examines the consequences of ICE’s failure to comply with the statutory notice requirements mandated by INA § 239, including illustrative case examples from Hofstra Law School’s Deportation Defense Clinic, demonstrating how defective NTAs prejudice noncitizens. One clinic client is “Maria,” whose story was previously described in The ICE Trap: Deportation Without Due Process, published in the UCLA Law Review. Another clinic client, “Oscar,” is introduced in this article. Oscar’s case was described in an amicus brief filed with the U.S. Supreme Court in Campos-Chaves. This article concludes with proposed solutions to address the pervasive problem of ICE disobeying Congress by issuing defective NTAs.

Continue reading ICE Un-Documented: How Campos-Chaves Allows ICE to Disobey Congress with Defective Notices to Appear