Status as of November 6, 2026
In a Cleveland immigration courtroom, an attorney and her client waited for a judge who was more than 2,000 miles away. They had driven two hours from Columbus to appear in person. Immigration Judge Guy Grande joined the hearing by video from San Diego, started more than an hour late and ended the session early because the Cleveland courthouse was closing three time zones ahead of him. The episode, reported by Bloomberg Law on November 6, illustrates an increasingly contentious feature of the US immigration court system: respondents may be required to appear physically while the judge presiding over their possible deportation is somewhere else entirely.
Remote judges, in-person respondents
Attorney Lilia Khordj told Bloomberg Law that Grande eventually agreed to let her client attend future hearings remotely. She questioned why that accommodation had not been available from the outset. The account is not evidence that every immigration court imposes the same attendance rules. Instead, it demonstrates the inconsistent arrangements described by attorneys across the country.
Some judges permit lawyers and respondents to join by video. Others require both to be physically present, even when the judge or the Department of Homeland Security attorney appears on a screen. According to lawyers and researchers interviewed by Bloomberg Law, missing a required in-person appearance can result in an in absentia removal order, subject to the governing legal standards.
For people who must travel long distances, the difference is substantial. A video hearing may save a judge's travel time while shifting transportation costs, missed work and logistical risk onto the person facing removal. The stakes are especially high when respondents are detained or fear being arrested while traveling to court.
Video hearings are already permitted by law
The use of remote technology is not a new rule introduced in November 2026. Section 240(b)(2) of the Immigration and Nationality Act and 8 C.F.R. § 1003.25(c) authorize immigration judges to conduct removal proceedings by video conference. The EOIR Immigration Court Practice Manual expressly states that the judge, respondent, government attorney and witnesses need not be in the same location.
The manual also distinguishes video hearings from telephone-only merits hearings, which have additional consent requirements. It allows immigration judges, in specified circumstances, to waive a respondent's or attorney's appearance at particular hearings. Thus, the central controversy is not whether a judge can legally appear on video. It concerns how appearance requirements are imposed, whether participants have a meaningful opportunity to present their cases and how the system functions when the judge and court are separated geographically.
How extensive is the practice?
Bloomberg Law reported that remote judicial assignments have expanded during President Donald Trump's second term. EOIR has advertised positions described as fully remote or eligible for telework. Jeremiah Johnson, executive vice president of the National Association of Immigration Judges, told the publication that only four of 21 judges at the Concord Immigration Court in California were appearing in person. That is an attributed account of one court, not an independently established nationwide percentage.
Bloomberg Law also identified judges serving New York's Federal Plaza Immigration Court from other states, including Florida and Maryland, through a review of judicial biographies and professional profiles. At the same time, EOIR has been adding judges and assigning them across the country to address a massive caseload.
EOIR spokesperson Kathryn Mattingly defended the practice, saying immigration judges can hear cases anywhere in the country to help manage workloads. According to the agency, nearly 974,000 cases were completed during fiscal year 2026, a record. The completion figure describes overall throughput, not the number of cases handled remotely, and by itself cannot establish whether faster processing improved or harmed the quality of decisions.
Different federal circuits, different binding law
Remote assignments raise a second, less visible question. Immigration cases are reviewed within a federal appellate system in which different circuits may interpret the same immigration statutes differently. Judges assigned across geographic boundaries may need to apply controlling precedent unfamiliar from their usual docket.
Bloomberg Law reported that two judges associated with Cleveland, Monte Horton and Norman Schroth, had recently been assigned cases at the Chelmsford Immigration Court in Massachusetts. Immigration lawyer Kimberly Fasking described judges based in Massachusetts and elsewhere handling cases in Louisiana. These examples illustrate cross-circuit staffing, but they do not prove that the wrong law was applied in any particular case.
The legal stakes are concrete. Federal appeals courts have sharply disagreed over the Trump administration's approach to mandatory immigration detention and bond hearings. The Fifth Circuit, covering Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi, upheld a broad mandatory detention policy in an October 2026 decision, while several other circuits have rejected the government's position. An immigration judge dealing with cases from different jurisdictions must account for the law governing each proceeding rather than assuming that the judge's home-court precedents control.
The precise choice-of-law question can depend on the procedural posture, the location of the proceedings and governing precedent. The judge's physical location alone does not automatically determine which appellate circuit's decisions apply.
Staffing pressures and access to justice
Remote hearings can provide genuine advantages. During the pandemic, video appearances helped courts keep cases moving and allowed participants to avoid travel. Researchers and former officials interviewed by Bloomberg Law acknowledged that remote judges can alleviate staffing shortages and make scheduling more flexible.
But the benefits are not necessarily distributed equally. Alaska attorney Nicolas Olano told the publication that clients detained in Washington state sometimes faced in-person requirements that prevented him from appearing remotely. Researchers also described inconsistent expectations between courts and judges. Former immigration judge and association official Johnson raised concerns about newer judges working remotely without the informal mentoring available in a shared courthouse.
The arrangement overlaps with another development: immigration hearings held in temporary rooms inside federal buildings administered by DHS. Bloomberg Law reported in September that lawyers, observers and even members of Congress encountered difficulties accessing some such hearings. In September, a federal judge considering a separate public-access lawsuit found plausible allegations concerning remote proceedings and out-of-state judges that were allegedly difficult for the public to observe, while declining broad preliminary relief. Those access questions are distinct from the legal validity of video testimony itself.
What the evidence does and does not show
The November 6 investigation documents a real operational practice, identifies named courts and judges, and includes the government's explanation. It does not establish that all remote immigration hearings are unlawful, that every judge requires respondents to travel or that cross-circuit assignments necessarily produce erroneous decisions. Nor does the published evidence quantify the share of the national immigration docket heard by judges sitting in another state.
What is established is a growing asymmetry: the federal system can move a judge's work across state lines with a video connection while still requiring some people facing deportation to travel to a particular courtroom. Whether that arrangement delivers the efficiency EOIR promises without compromising meaningful participation, consistent application of law and public access is now a question of increasing consequence for immigration courts.
Sources: Bloomberg Law, November 6, 2026; EOIR Immigration Court Practice Manual, Section 3.6; EOIR directory of internet-based hearings; Bloomberg Law, September 29, 2026; Federal court order, September 3, 2026.