A-File Before Immigration Court: Get the Government's File Before Your Hearing
The hearing is on the calendar. The government already has your file. You should have it too.
The A-file is the federal government's master record on you — your applications, your history, every contact with immigration enforcement. In a removal case, that file is not background reading. It is what DHS is litigating from. If you walk into Immigration Court without it, you are defending yourself against a record you have never seen.
We are Novo Legal Group, a Denver-based, bilingual immigration and civil-rights firm. We help individuals and families get their A-file before the hearing — and when U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) sits on a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request past the statutory deadline, we sue the agency in federal court to force a response. We also co-counsel the federal-court piece for immigration attorneys whose client has a hearing date and a stalled file.
Your Hearing Date Is Coming. The Government Already Has Your File. Do You?
This page is written for two readers.
The first is the person whose Master Calendar or Individual Hearing is on the calendar — or that person's spouse, parent, or adult child — searching at night for "how do I get my immigration file before court." The second is the immigration attorney with a USCIS FOIA submitted weeks ago, no A-file in hand, and a hearing date that is not moving. The procedural levers are the same for both of you. The stakes are different. We will name both.
What does not change either way: USCIS is the agency that holds the A-file. USCIS FOIA is the channel to get it. And when the agency goes silent past the statutory response deadline, federal court is the forum that can review whether the records were improperly withheld. We litigate that piece. We do not promise it produces a file before a specific hearing date — no honest firm can. We promise we will tell you the truth about what the lawsuit can and cannot do, and we will file it competently when it is the right move.
Why the A-File Decides Removal Defense
The A-file is not paperwork. It is the evidentiary universe of the case the government is bringing against you. The H3s below say why.
What the A-file is
Your A-file (Alien File) is the federal government's master immigration record on you. It is held by USCIS — not by the Immigration Court, not by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, not by Customs and Border Protection. It travels with you across applications, denials, encounters, and proceedings. It is the long-form story DHS already has. Getting a copy of that story is the foundation of any serious removal defense.
What's inside that changes your defense
We frame the A-file's contents the way the agency does — an A-file may include, not exhaustively contains. The catalogs below are the categories the file routinely carries; what is actually in your file depends on your history.
- The charging document. Form I-862 Notice to Appear, Form I-122 Order to Show Cause, or Form I-863 Notice of Referral to Immigration Judge — the document that initiated the removal proceeding.
- Form I-213, the Record of Deportable / Inadmissible Alien. The ICE or CBP narrative of the enforcement encounter. In many removal cases, the I-213 is the single most fact-load-bearing document in the file.
- Prior applications, petitions, and interview records. Copies of any prior benefit applications (I-130, I-589, I-485, and so on), USCIS or asylum-officer interview notes, prior decisions, and prior denials.
- Criminal-history and prior-enforcement records. Arrest records, dispositions, fingerprint check returns, and prior enforcement contacts (prior NTAs, prior voluntary departures, prior removals) that DHS has incorporated into the immigration file.
The A-file is not a complete or authoritative criminal-history record. It is the immigration file's view of what DHS has cataloged. A reader who needs a complete criminal-disposition picture will need court records as well; the A-file shows what immigration thinks it has.
Why you can't build a defense without it
A removal hearing is litigation against a file. If you have not seen the file, you cannot read the I-213 narrative DHS is going to elicit, anticipate which prior applications the government will surface, pre-empt prior-enforcement contacts the agency may try to weave into the case, or map the relief picture against what the agency already believes about your history.
This is not a corner case. It is the default posture of removal defense. The A-file is how you stop defending in the dark.
How to Request Your A-File — and the Realistic Timeline
The first thing we tell every reader is this: do not send the request to the wrong agency. A submission to the immigration court is not a request to USCIS. A request to USCIS is not a request to the immigration court. The two channels are separate. We disentangle them below, then walk through the realistic timeline.
The USCIS FOIA path for the A-file
The A-file is requested through USCIS FOIA. As of January 22, 2026, USCIS expects FOIA and Privacy Act requests for USCIS records to be submitted online through the FIRST portal at `first.uscis.gov`, after creating a USCIS account. Paper and email are accepted only in narrow exceptions. A request can be filed by the person whose file it is (the "subject" of the file) or by an attorney of record on their behalf.
The A-file lives at USCIS. The EOIR Record of Proceeding (ROP) — the immigration court's file on a respondent's case (Notice to Appear as filed with the court, motions, evidence, immigration-judge orders, and digital-audio recording of hearings) — is a different file. The ROP is requested directly from the immigration court or the Board of Immigration Appeals using EOIR's Request for ROP procedure (Form EOIR-59 is recommended; attorneys of record use Form EOIR-28 with the immigration court or Form EOIR-27 with the BIA), outside the FOIA process. Different file, different agency, different procedure. We do not let clients or referring attorneys send the wrong request to the wrong place.
If your matter also involves an appellate or AAO posture, our federal appellate-immigration practice coordinates the FOIA piece with the underlying appeal.
The clock: agencies generally must respond within ~20 business days
Under 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(6)(A)(i), the agency generally must determine within 20 business days whether it will comply — meaning issue an initial response identifying records, exemptions, and any production estimate. That deadline is the determination clock, not the production clock; producing records may take longer, and a 10-working-day "unusual circumstances" extension can apply under § 552(a)(6)(B).
That distinction is where most consumer-facing pages on this topic mislead readers. "20 business days" is not "you will have your file in 20 business days." It is the deadline by which the agency has to tell you what it is going to do.
Expedited processing when you're in removal proceedings
There are two separate "go faster" paths at USCIS, and they are not the same path.
The first is statutory expedited processing under 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(6)(E). The statute requires USCIS to grant expedited processing where the requester shows a "compelling need" (such as an imminent threat to life or safety) and to decide on the expedited request within 10 days. Expedited treatment speeds the determination — it does not guarantee a production deadline.
The second is USCIS's published prioritization category for A-file requests by individuals with a scheduled immigration-judge hearing. To invoke that category, the requester must attach ONE of four scheduling documents with the FIRST submission: Form I-862 (Notice to Appear) documenting the upcoming hearing date; Form I-122 (Order to Show Cause) documenting the upcoming hearing date; Form I-863 (Notice of Referral to Immigration Judge); or a written notice of continuation of a future scheduled hearing before the immigration judge. USCIS commits to prioritize a qualifying request to deliver it faster. USCIS does not publish a guaranteed turnaround number.
We do not estimate a turnaround on the prioritization category because USCIS does not estimate one. If the agency does not deliver within the statutory deadlines despite the prioritization request, the federal-court path described next becomes the operative remedy.
Your Hearing Is Close and the A-File Still Isn't Here — Now What?
This is the section most consumer-facing pages on this topic get wrong, and the section where the temptation to overpromise is highest. We will not. There is no procedural lever that guarantees the A-file in your hands before a specific hearing date. There are levers that may help, and there is one lever — federal litigation — that gives a court the authority to review the agency's conduct. We describe them in the order people typically use them.
Asking the Immigration Judge for time
You may request more time from the Immigration Judge. Under the EOIR Immigration Court Practice Manual's general framework, the Immigration Judge has discretion to grant additional time on a showing of good cause. The decision is the IJ's, not yours and not ours. We will not advise on motion strategy on a public page. Whether "the file is not here yet" rises to good cause depends on the case, the IJ, the prior continuances, and the posture of the proceeding.
What we will not do is tell you a continuance is grantable, guaranteed, or even probable based on what we can see from a website. It is a discretionary IJ call. Talk to counsel about your specific case before you decide how to ask for it.
When delay becomes a federal case
When USCIS misses the statutory time limit, you may be able to sue in federal district court. Under 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(6)(C), missing the statutory deadline puts the requester in a posture of "constructive exhaustion" — meaning a requester may be able to proceed in federal court without first completing the agency's administrative appeal. The court can still allow the agency more time on a showing of exceptional circumstances and due diligence; this is a safety valve, not a hard production deadline.
If a federal court finds the agency improperly withheld records, a court can order improperly withheld records released and set a production schedule the agency has to follow (5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(4)(B)). A federal court can also review the adequacy of the agency's search, examine each claimed exemption in camera, and order release of segregable, non-exempt portions. Under 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(4)(E), a court may award reasonable attorney fees and litigation costs where the requester has "substantially prevailed" — a discretionary determination, not an automatic award.
There is real precedent in the A-file FOIA context. A federal court in the Northern District of California has found a pattern-or-practice of unreasonable delay in USCIS A-file FOIA processing and entered a permanent injunction requiring the agencies to comply with FOIA's timing requirements. Nightingale v. USCIS, No. 3:19-cv-03512, 2020 WL 7640547 (N.D. Cal. Dec. 17, 2020) (Orrick, J.). According to the most recent court-filed compliance reports we have reviewed, that order remains in force and the court continues to supervise compliance. Nightingale does not mean USCIS is required to produce any individual A-file on any specific timeline — but it is the leading federal-court holding that the agency-wide delay is unlawful.
And the part every honest firm has to say plainly: a lawsuit may compel a response. Timeline depends on the agency, the records, applicable exemptions, and litigation posture — never guaranteed. No firm can promise the lawsuit produces the file before any specific hearing date. What we can do is file it competently, brief it, and litigate it like the federal-court matter it is.
Why timing strategy needs a lawyer, fast
The three levers above interact. Statutory expedited processing under § 552(a)(6)(E) and the USCIS hearing-prioritization category are not the same thing. A continuance does not pause the FOIA clock, and a federal lawsuit does not pause the hearing calendar. Counsel triages all three on a deadline, calibrated to the facts of the case and the hearing date.
If your matter is at this stage — the file is not here, the hearing is close — that is the moment to talk to a lawyer who litigates federal records delays. Our removal-defense practice handles the underlying defense; our FOIA litigation hub describes the federal-court piece in fuller detail. You can also see our federal-records and transparency results for the litigation track record behind this work.
A-File Before Immigration Court: FAQ
How long does an A-file FOIA take?
Under 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(6)(A)(i), USCIS generally must determine within 20 business days whether it will comply — meaning issue an initial response identifying records, exemptions, and any production estimate. That deadline is the determination clock, not the production clock; producing records may take longer, and a 10-working-day "unusual circumstances" extension can apply. USCIS does not publish a guaranteed turnaround for A-file requests.
Can I get my A-file faster if I have a hearing date?
USCIS publishes a prioritization category for A-file requests by individuals with a scheduled immigration-judge hearing. To invoke it, the requester must attach one of four scheduling documents with the FIRST submission: Form I-862 (Notice to Appear) documenting the upcoming hearing date; Form I-122 (Order to Show Cause) documenting the upcoming hearing date; Form I-863 (Notice of Referral to Immigration Judge); or a written notice of continuation of a future scheduled hearing before the immigration judge. USCIS will prioritize a qualifying request; USCIS does not publish a guaranteed turnaround.
What if my hearing is before the A-file arrives?
Two procedural levers exist. First, you may request additional time from the Immigration Judge — a discretionary call by the IJ. Second, where USCIS has missed the statutory deadline, federal-court remedies under FOIA (and, where appropriate, the Administrative Procedure Act) may be available. Neither lever guarantees the file arrives before any specific hearing date. Timeline depends on the agency, the records, applicable exemptions, and litigation posture — never guaranteed.
What's actually in my A-file?
An A-file may include the charging document that initiated the removal proceeding (Form I-862 Notice to Appear, Form I-122 Order to Show Cause, or Form I-863); Form I-213 (the ICE/CBP enforcement-encounter narrative); copies of prior applications, petitions, and interview records; and criminal-history and prior-enforcement records that DHS has incorporated into the immigration file. The exact contents depend on the individual's history. The A-file is not a complete criminal-history record.
Do I need a lawyer to request my A-file?
You can file the FOIA request yourself through the USCIS FIRST portal at `first.uscis.gov`. Counsel matters more on the follow-through: arguing statutory expedited processing under 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(6)(E), invoking the hearing-prioritization category correctly, evaluating constructive-exhaustion remedies under § 552(a)(6)(C), and litigating a FOIA/APA suit if the agency goes silent past the deadline. The submission is the easy part. The strategy on a deadline is not.
What's the difference between an A-file and my immigration-court file?
The A-file is held by USCIS and is requested through USCIS FOIA via the FIRST portal. The EOIR Record of Proceeding — the immigration court's case file and digital-audio recording — is requested directly from the immigration court or the Board of Immigration Appeals using EOIR's Request for ROP procedure (Form EOIR-59 recommended), outside the FOIA process. Different files, different agencies, different procedures.
Will a FOIA lawsuit force USCIS to give me my A-file before my hearing?
You may be able to sue USCIS in federal court when the agency misses the statutory deadline. A court can order improperly withheld records released and set a production schedule. A court cannot promise immediate production or production before any specific hearing date. Timeline depends on the agency, the records, applicable exemptions, and litigation posture — never guaranteed.
I'm a solo immigration attorney with a USCIS FOIA past the response window and a hearing approaching. What do I want from co-counsel?
Co-counsel on the federal-court piece typically owns the FOIA / APA complaint, the constructive-exhaustion analysis under § 552(a)(6)(C), the Nightingale-style pattern-or-practice framing where relevant, and any expedited-processing administrative appeal. You stay lead on the removal-defense matter; co-counsel handles the federal piece on the clock. We offer scoped, conflict-clean engagements with clear referral economics.
For the person whose hearing is on the calendar — and the family member who is helping them prepare.
You should not have to walk into Immigration Court without your own file. If USCIS has gone past the statutory response deadline, if the hearing-prioritization request did not produce a result, or if you are not sure what the procedural moves even look like at this stage — let's talk. We will give you a straight read on what we can and cannot do. A consult is private and there is no obligation. We are based in Denver, we serve clients in Colorado and Washington, and we litigate federal records-delay cases nationally.
Are you the attorney on this case? Refer or co-counsel the A-file FOIA/APA piece — call (888) 746-5245 (`tel:+18887465245`) or contact us and we will scope the federal-court engagement on a same-day basis.
