The Board of Immigration Appeals has sustained an interlocutory appeal by DHS after an immigration judge denied its motion to pretermit asylum applications filed by a Venezuelan and Colombian family, again based on the safe third country bar under the asylum cooperative agreement with Ecuador. The immigration judge had found that DHS's oral motion to pretermit did not provide adequate notice of its intent to remove the family to Ecuador and, alternatively, that the agreement did not apply absent an implementation plan.
The Board held that an oral motion to pretermit filed at a hearing is sufficient notice of DHS's intent to remove the family under the agreement, and reaffirmed that an immigration judge lacks authority to require proof of an implementation plan, proof that the third country is willing to accept the family, or an assessment of whether the third country offers full and fair procedures. The Board also held that the immigration judge erred in declining to designate Ecuador as the country of removal once DHS indicated its intent to do so. The case was remanded for an expeditious determination of the safe third country bar.
The full text of Matter of E-A-R-M- can be found here: https://www.justice.gov/eoir/media/1451996/dl?inline