The Administrative Appeals Office (AAO) is the branch of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) that adjudicates appeals filed by noncitizens when they are wrongly denied certain types of immigration benefits. In most cases, the AAO issues non-precedent decisions as the final opinion in these appeals, which the AAO used to post on the USCIS webpage dedicated to these decisions. Practitioners, and the public at large, could search and review past decisions, which provide valuable insight into how the agency decides certain issues or the type of evidence the agency may deem necessary to meet an application’s requirements.
This past March, however, the AAO stopped posting these decisions without an explanation, even though the website shows that these decisions will be posted within about one month after they are issued.
Resumption in publishing these opinions ensures that practitioners have the most up-to-date information about how USCIS adjudicates applications. The AAO uses these non-precedent decisions to help guide officers decide similar cases. If the AAO is allowed to stop posting these decisions, applicants for benefits will be at a disadvantage as they will not be able to analyze how the agency decides certain cases. A lack of transparency as to these non-precedent decisions may lead to a “secret” body of law, which FOIA was enacted to prevent.
Key Developments
On March 30, 2026, Judge Jed S. Rakoff, in the Southern District of New York, ordered USCIS to publish past AAO non-precedent decisions and any new decisions issued by the AAO by November 30, 2026. Plaintiffs will monitor the AAO’s compliance with the judge’s order, which can be found below.
Obtaining the records
November 19, 2025 – Council and Partners Request that USCIS Resume Publication of AAO Non-precedent Decisions
The American Immigration Council, along with the Legal Aid Society, and the National Immigration Project filed a request under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) with USCIS asking the agency to publish decisions issued by the AAO since March, and to resume publishing non-precedent decisions on the agency’s website. The AAO non-precedent decisions are final opinions under the FOIA’s proactive disclosure provisions, which require agencies to publish these types of records on agencies’ electronic reading rooms for public review. The request also sought information as to whether the AAO implemented new policies about how to publish the non-precedent decision.
February 10, 2026 – Council and Partners File Lawsuit to Compel USCIS to Publish the AAO’s Non-precedent Decision.
Due to USCIS’s failure to respond to the November 19 request, the Council, along with The Legal Aid Society and the National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York to compel USCIS to publish these important decisions.
