Leaked Email: Immigration Courts Told to Keep Collecting Asylum Fee After Judge Voided the Rules for It

A federal court vacated EOIR’s fee policy three weeks ago. Chief Immigration Judge Teresa Riley told every immigration judge in the country that the annual fee “remains in effect.”

Oct 16, 2026

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WASHINGTON — Twenty-one days after a federal judge voided the rules for charging asylum seekers an annual fee to keep their cases alive, the nation’s top immigration judge sent her courts a message: keep charging it.

The instruction came on Oct. 13 in a three-sentence email from Chief Immigration Judge Teresa L. Riley, obtained exclusively by Migrant Insider. It went to all immigration judges, all court administrators and all assistant chief immigration judges at the Executive Office for Immigration Review, or EOIR, the Justice Department agency that runs the immigration courts. The subject line read: “injunction - please read.”

There was no injunction. That is a major story.

Leaked Email: Immigration Courts Told to Keep Collecting Asylum Fee After Judge Voided the Rules for It

A federal court vacated EOIR’s fee policy three weeks ago. Chief Immigration Judge Teresa Riley told every immigration judge in the country that the annual fee “remains in effect.”

Three sentences, three weeks late

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