| Remember that if you have been ordered deported by an Immigration Judge, you only have 30 days in which to file a Notice of Appeal. If you do not file the Notice of Appeal within those 30 days, your case is considered final and the Immigration Judge's decision is the last decision on your case. You will then be required to leave the US within the time granted by the Immigration Judge. Any employment authorization that may have been given to you during the court proceedings, will also expire. If you do not depart during the days when the period of voluntary departure is in effect, you will become a fugitive from the federal authorities and will be unable to file an application for a number of other benefits that you may be entitled in the future. For example, you decide to hide from the authorities because you will soon be able to apply for a green card based on your marriage to a US citizen partner, or based on a parent's application that will soon be filed. However, you will not be able to apply for any such benefits if you failed to abide by the order to depart voluntary when you were told to do so. On the other hand, if you do file an appeal within the 30 days required by law, you may continue to live in the US lawfully while your appeal is pending (often for several years); you may also continue to obtain employment authorization extensions; and, most importantly, you may be able to overturn the decision of the Immigration Judge, if your appeal convinces the Board of Immigration Appeals that the Immigration Judge erred in some manner, or that some injustice occurred during the immigration court proceedings which warrants correction. Finally, you may also be the beneficiary of a change in the law, which may give you the right to apply for new relief not available before. With all of the benefits that an alien ordered deported may derive from filing a non-frivolous appeal, it would be, in most cases, inexplicable not to do so. |
