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Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 236 / Monday, December 13, 2021 / Rules and Regulations exceptions, for the Department of Homeland Security DHS, attorneys, and accredited representatives, as well as providing for future voluntary use by pro se respondents, applicants, and petitioners; reputable individuals; and accredited officials; 3 providing standards for electronic filing relating to signatures, service of process, system outages, and the filing of classified information; 4 updating fee language to account for electronic payments; 5
removing the in-duplicate filing requirement for electronic filings; 6
revising the procedures for law student and law graduate filing and accompaniment; and 7 making various technical amendments to update outdated references and to conform with EOIRs style guidelines.
The comment period for the NPRM
opened on December 4, 2020, and closed on January 4, 2021, with six organizational comments received. The Department summarizes and responds to the public comments below, followed by a description of changes made to the NPRM in this final rule.
II. Public Comments on the Proposed Rule and Responses The Department received six organizational comments on the NPRM, which are organized by topic below.

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A. Law Student or Law Graduate Accompaniment Comment: One commenter requested that EOIR modify the proposed rule to clarify that supervising attorneys should not be required to be physically present in the same location as the law student or law graduate during a telephonic or video teleconference VTC hearing.
Response: After consideration, the Department has determined that the regulations should not specify that the law student or law graduate and the supervising attorney or accredited representative must all be physically present in the same location for each hearing. Instead, the Department has decided to remove the physical presence requirement and leave the determination regarding the parties manner of appearance to the adjudicators discretion, as is the case with all other types of representatives.
For example, subject to the adjudicators discretion, the supervising attorney or accredited representative may attend the hearing from a separate location, so long as the supervising attorney or accredited representative is able to proceed with the hearing if necessary. The change is described in more detail in Section III
below.

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B. System Outages Comment: One commenter stated that the rules planned outage standards should match the unplanned outage standards, which automatically moves the filing deadline in the case of an EOIR-recognized unplanned outage. The commenter was concerned about situations in which planned outages are not announced with sufficient notice or where a planned outage is not adequately publicized.
Response: The Department considered the commenters suggestion and has decided to leave the planned outage process unchanged but will extend the minimum notice of planned outages from three to five days to ensure sufficient notice. The Department believes that this updated planned outage standard provides users with sufficient notice to ensure that filers will be able to complete any filings as necessary.
The rule states that, for any planned outage, EOIR will issue public communications regarding the planned outage. See 8 CFR 1003.2g5, 1003.3g2, 1003.31b. These communications may include email notifications via EOIRs GovDelivery service and postings on EOIRs website, consistent with the standard practice of other court systems. See, e.g., U.S. Ct. of App. for the Fed. Cir., CM/ECF
Scheduled Maintenance Outages, available at http
www.cafc.uscourts.gov/cmecfscheduled-maintenance-outages last visited Feb. 26, 2021.
In addition, any planned outages announced with five or fewer business days prior to the outage will be treated as an unplanned outage and filing deadlines will be adjusted accordingly.
See 8 CFR 1003.2g5, 1003.3g2, 1003.31b. Therefore, for any properly noticed planned outage, filers will have at least six business days notice, which the Department believes is sufficient to allow filers to plan their filings accordingly to meet all applicable filing deadlines.
C. Proof of Fee Payments Comment: One commenter requested that EOIR clarify that proof of fee payments is sufficient when filing fee receipts, as the commenter stated that DHS is often delayed in providing a fee receipt in a timely manner.
Response: After consideration, the Department has updated the rule to account for situations in which a fee receipt has not been provided to the filer by the deadline set by the immigration court. The specific changes are described in further detail in Section III of this preamble.

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D. Email Filings Comment: One commenter requested clarity on the interaction between EOIRs implementation of electronic filing through this rule and EOIRs use of email filing due to the COVID19
pandemic. The commenter asked whether the email inboxes would remain after the launch of electronic filing in an immigration court and questioned whether they should remain for pro se respondents.
Response: EOIR created temporary email inboxes to allow for basic electronic filing due to the COVID19
pandemic. See EOIR, Filing by Email Immigration Courts, available at https
www.justice.gov/eoir-operational-status/
filing-email-immigration-courts last updated September 7, 2021. As explained on the website, the email inboxes were intended for use only by non-ECAS users. See id. If you have opted-in to ECAS, do not use email in lieu of filing through ECAS.. The email inboxes were intended to support the public and did not create efficiencies for EOIR, as they required court staff to print all filings for paper cases and to manually upload any filings for cases with electronic records of proceedings eROPs. These email inboxes are now discontinued and were not intended to be long-term solutions for electronic filing at EOIR. Id. Filing by Email Expiration Date.
Instead, EOIR continues to pursue full implementation of ECAS, a full-fledged electronic filing and records system, which provides filers with a secure portal to electronically view and file documents in eligible cases and sends automatic service notifications from EOIR.
Regarding pro se respondents, EOIR is focused on determining how to securely register them for ECAS, which will then enable willing pro se respondents to use ECAS for electronic filing.
E. Pro Se Access and Registration Comment: One commenter requested additional information on EOIRs planned steps for providing pro se access to electronic filing. The commenter noted that the electronic filing system should ensure language accessibility for pro se respondents and that any electronic filing should be free of charge. Another commenter provided suggestions on registering pro se users for electronic filing, including using an identity verification system such as www.login.gov, or providing an inperson registration code.
Response: This rule creates a framework for allowing pro se respondents to use ECAS, including a
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