New Practice Advisory: Stays of Removal

American Immigration Council (Council) and the National Immigration Project, Jan. 17, 2025

"A stay of removal prevents the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) from executing a final order of removal against a person. DHS, immigration judges (IJs), the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA), and the U.S. courts of appeals all have the authority to grant stays of removal. If a stay of removal is in effect, DHS may not remove the person from the United States. There are two categories of stays of removal: court-ordered and administrative. Although immigration courts and the BIA are part of the Department of Justice and therefore administrative tribunals rather than judicial tribunals, stay requests considered by these adjudicators are governed by similar standards and procedures as those that govern judicial stay requests. As such, this practice advisory uses the term “court-ordered stay of removal” to describe a stay issued by an immigration court, the BIA, or a U.S. court of appeals. Administrative stays of removal refer to DHS-issued stays of removal. This practice advisory explains how to seek a court-ordered stay of removal with an IJ, the BIA, and the U.S. courts of appeals, and how to seek an administrative stay of removal from DHS.

Copyright (c) 2025, American Immigration Council (Council) and the National Immigration Project. This resource is released under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0). It is intended for authorized legal counsel and is not a substitute for independent legal advice provided by legal counsel familiar with a client’s case. Counsel should independently confirm whether the law has changed since the date of this publication. This practice advisory is an update of a practice advisory published on June 21, 2021 by the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc. (CLINIC). This practice advisory incorporates parts of another practice advisory, “Seeking a Judicial Stay of Removal in the Court of Appeals,” issued on January 21, 2014 by the National Immigration Project, the American Immigration Council, Boston College Post Deportation Human Rights Project and Immigrant Rights Clinic, New York University School of Law, and Washington Square Legal Services, which was authored by Trina Realmuto, Jessica Chicco, Nancy Morawetz, and Beth Werlin. Michelle N. Méndez, Director of Legal Resources and Training at the National Immigration Project, Rebecca Cassler, Senior Litigation Attorney at the American Immigration Council, and Emma Winger, Deputy Legal Director at the Council, authored this practice advisory. The authors would like to thank Rebecca Scholtz, Senior Attorney at the National Immigration Project, for her thoughtful review and helpful feedback and National Immigration Project extern Tyler Brooks for his careful cite check."