Privacy Act of 1974; Systems of Records

<NOTICE> DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE <DEPDOC>[CPCLO Order No. 05-2025]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Privacy Act of 1974; Systems of Records</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Executive Office for Immigration Review, United States Department of Justice <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Notice of a system of records. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> Pursuant to the Privacy Act of 1974, 5 U.S.C. 552a, and Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Circular No. A-108, notice is hereby given that the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR), a component within the United States Department of Justice (DOJ or Department), proposes to develop a new system of records titled “Pro Bono List Program Records,” and numbered JUSTICE/EOIR-005. EOIR proposes to establish this system of records to track and manage information and documents related to the List of Pro Bono Legal Service Providers (the List), as well as administration of the underlying application process for organizations, pro bono referral services, and attorneys to be included on the List. The system integrates an electronic information system to manage the records more efficiently, simplify the application process for providers through an online web-based Pro Bono List User Portal, allow providers to update their own contact information in the List, and streamline communications between EOIR, legal service providers, and the public. </SUM> <DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> In accordance with 5 U.S.C. 552a(e)(4) and (11), this notice is effective upon publication, subject to a 30-day period in which to comment on the routine uses, described below. Therefore, please submit any comments by January 20, 2026. </DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> The public, Office of Management and Budget (OMB), and Congress are invited to submit any comments: by mail to the United States Department of Justice, Office of Privacy and Civil Liberties, ATTN: Privacy Analyst, Two Constitution Square, 145 N St. NE, Suite 8W-300, Washington, DC 20530; by facsimile at 202-307-0693; or by email at <E T="03">privacy.compliance@usdoj.gov.</E> To ensure proper handling, please reference the above CPCLO Order No. on your correspondence. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Justine Fuga, Senior Component Official for Privacy, Office of the General Counsel; by mail at Executive Office for Immigration Review, 5107 Leesburg Pike, Suite 2600, Falls Church, VA 22041; or by email at <E T="03">Justine.Fuga@usdoj.gov</E> and <E T="03">EOIR.Privacy.Intake@usdoj.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> The primary mission of EOIR is to adjudicate immigration cases by fairly, expeditiously, and uniformly interpreting and administering the Nation's immigration laws. Under delegated authority from the Attorney General, EOIR conducts immigration court proceedings, appellate reviews, and administrative hearings. EOIR is required under 8 U.S.C. 1158(d)(4) and 1229(b)(2) to maintain a list of pro bono legal service providers who are available to represent individuals who are placed in immigration proceedings before EOIR and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The EOIR Office of Policy maintains the List, which must be updated on a quarterly basis. 8 U.S.C. 1158(d)(4), 1229(b)(2). The List is provided to individuals in immigration proceedings and contains information on non-profit organizations and attorneys who have committed to providing at least 50 hours per year of pro bono legal services before the immigration court with respect to which they appear on the List. The List also contains information on pro bono referral services that refer individuals in immigration court proceedings to pro bono counsel. The rules for qualifying organizations, pro bono referral services, and attorneys to be placed on the List can be found at 8 CFR 1003.61 <E T="03">et seq.</E> EOIR uses an electronic information system to manage records related to the List more efficiently; simplify the application process for providers through the external-facing web-based Pro Bono List User Portal; allow providers to update to their own contact information through the User Portal; and streamline communications between EOIR, providers, and the public. EOIR distributes copies of the List to its immigration courts and to DHS and posts the List on its public website, available at <E T="03">https://www.justice.gov/eoir/list-pro-bono-legal-service-providers.</E> In accordance with 5 U.S.C. 552a(r), the Department has provided a report to OMB and Congress on this new system of records. <SIG> <DATED>Dated: December 17, 2025.</DATED> <NAME>Peter A. Winn,</NAME> Acting Chief Privacy and Civil Liberties Officer, United States Department of Justice. </SIG> <HD SOURCE="HD1">JUSTICE/EOIR-005</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">SYSTEM NAME AND NUMBER:</HD> Pro Bono List Program Records, EOIR-005 <HD SOURCE="HD2">SECURITY CLASSIFICATION:</HD> Unclassified. <HD SOURCE="HD2">SYSTEM LOCATION:</HD> Office of Policy, Executive Office for Immigration Review, 5107 Leesburg Pike, Suite 2500, Falls Church, VA 22041. Electronic records are maintained in EOIR's electronic information system, the Pro Bono List Microsoft Dynamics System, and stored in the DOJ EOIR Microsoft Azure Cloud. <HD SOURCE="HD2">SYSTEM MANAGER(S):</HD> Assistant Director, Office of Policy, Executive Office for Immigration Review, 5107 Leesburg Pike, Suite 2500, Falls Church, VA 22041. Chief Information Officer, Office of Information Technology, Executive Office for Immigration Review, 4825 Mark Center Drive, Suite 200, Alexandria, VA 22311. <HD SOURCE="HD2">AUTHORITY FOR MAINTENANCE OF THE SYSTEM:</HD> 8 U.S.C. 1158(d)(4)(B), 1229(a)(1)(E)(ii), and 1229(b)(2); 8 CFR 1003.61-.66, 1240.10(a)(2), 1240.11(c)(1)(iii), 1240.32(a), 1240.48(a), and 1241.14 (g)(3)(i). <HD SOURCE="HD2">PURPOSE(S) OF THE SYSTEM:</HD> The records are used to comply with the statutes and regulations requiring EOIR to provide a List of Pro Bono Legal Service Providers (List) to individuals in immigration proceedings. The records are used by EOIR to administer the application and renewal process for organizations, attorneys, and representatives to be included on the List; to generate, maintain, and update the List quarterly; to publicly disseminate the List; and to evaluate the impact of the Pro Bono List Program on EOIR's mission and operations and on the public. EOIR distributes copies of the List to its immigration courts and to DHS and posts the List on its public-facing website, available at <E T="03">https://www.justice.gov/eoir/list-pro-bono-legal-service-providers.</E> <HD SOURCE="HD2">CATEGORIES OF INDIVIDUALS COVERED BY THE SYSTEM:</HD> The system includes information pertaining to licensed attorneys, non-profit organizations, accredited representatives employed by recognized organizations, and pro bono referral services who are applying to be included on the List, who are on the list, or who have been removed from the List, as well as individuals in immigration removal proceedings who received pro bono legal services as reported by the attorneys, representatives, organizations, and referral services on the List in accordance with 8 CFR 1003.61 <E T="03">et seq.</E> The system also includes information pertaining to members of the public who submit comments or complaints about applicants or listed providers. <HD SOURCE="HD2">CATEGORIES OF RECORDS IN THE SYSTEM:</HD> Records in this system include the quarterly Lists, application packages, and application files. Application packages include initial and renewal applications from those organizations and individuals who are applying to be included on the List, or who are on the List, or who have been removed from the List. Application packages consist of the following types of records and collections of information: Form EOIR-56, Request to be Included on the List of Pro Bono Legal Service Providers for Individuals in Immigration Proceedings (OMB No. 1125-0015), or documentation functionally equivalent to the Form EOIR-56; names; EOIR ID numbers; contact information; pro bono service areas; specialties or restrictions on services provided; declarations regarding an applicant's or provider's List eligibility; alien registration numbers and dates and hours of service provided for clients in immigration proceedings as reported by the applicant or provider in accordance with 8 CFR 1003.61 <E T="03">et seq.</E> The records in this system also include application files, which include the application package and the following records: correspondence between EOIR and applicants or providers; written determinations and notices from EOIR approving or denying applications to be on the List or removing providers from the List, and any written responses from an applicant or provider about such determinations; and comments and complaints received from members of the public about applications, applicants, and providers. <HD SOURCE="HD2">RECORD SOURCE CATEGORIES:</HD> Records and information in this system are generated or provided by applicants and providers, members of the public, and EOIR personnel. <HD SOURCE="HD2">ROUTINE USES OF RECORDS MAINTAINED IN THE SYSTEM, INCLUDING CATEGORIES OF USERS AND THE PURPOSES OF SUCH USES:</HD> In addition to those disclosures permitted under 5 U.S.C. 522a(b) of the Privacy Act, all or a portion of the records or information contained in this system may be disclosed as a routine use pursuant to 5 U.S.C. 552a(b)(3) under the circumstances or for the purposes described below, to the extent such disclosures are compatible with the purposes for which the information was collected: (1) To individuals in immigration proceedings in order to provide the individual with a list of persons and organizations, updated not less than quarterly, who have indicated their a ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 24k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━