DHS Form I-862 (Notice to Appear): First Hearing and Relief Options

A DHS Form I-862 Notice to Appear is the charging document the Department of Homeland Security uses to start removal proceedings against you in immigration court. It is not a removal order. It is the government’s statement that it believes you should be removed and is asking an immigration judge to decide. What happens next depends on what the document says, how you respond, and whether you qualify for relief that lets you stay.

What the Document Says About You

The NTA has two parts, and the difference between them matters.

The factual allegations are numbered statements about your immigration history: your name, country of citizenship, when and how you entered, and whether that entry was lawful. In court you will admit or deny each one. Agreeing to a wrong allegation, even a small detail like a date, can weaken your defense or close off relief you would otherwise qualify for. Read each line and go over it with a lawyer before you say anything on the record.

The charges of removability cite the specific statute the government says applies to you. They fall into one of two buckets: inadmissibility under 8 U.S.C. § 1182, which covers people who were never lawfully admitted, and deportability under 8 U.S.C. § 1227, which covers people who were admitted and then violated their status or were convicted of certain offenses.¹² Which bucket you sit in shapes what defenses and forms of relief you can raise.

When Proceedings Actually Start

Being handed the NTA does not begin your case in court. Proceedings start when DHS files the NTA with an immigration court, which gives that court jurisdiction and fixes the location, usually based on your address or the detention facility if you are locked up.³ From filing forward, the law treats you as a “respondent” in proceedings under 8 U.S.C. § 1229a.⁴

The NTA may include the date, time, and location of your first hearing, or those lines may be blank. If they are blank, the court mails a separate hearing notice.⁵ Notices go to the last address you gave the court.

What to Do Right Now

Find an immigration attorney. Immigration law has its own procedural rules, deadlines, and evidentiary standards, and general legal knowledge does not carry over from other areas. Representation is the single strongest predictor of a better outcome.

Attorney fees for removal cases generally run from $7,500 to $15,000 and higher depending on complexity and the relief involved. If you cannot afford private counsel, the Executive Office for Immigration Review publishes a list of nonprofit and pro bono providers at each court location, and the immigration judge is required to hand you a list at your first hearing.⁶

Start gathering documents while you look. Depending on the relief you pursue, that can include birth and marriage certificates, tax returns, proof of how long you have lived in the United States, evidence of relationships to U.S. citizen or permanent-resident family members, and police clearances. These records take time to collect, and the court enforces filing deadlines strictly.

Update your address. Every notice the court sends — hearing dates, rescheduled hearings, decisions — goes to the last address on file. You must file Form EOIR-33/IC with the immigration court within five working days of any change of address or phone number, and you have to file a separate update with DHS because the two do not share the change automatically.⁷ Missing this step is one of the most common ways otherwise defensible cases end in removal orders.

Your First Hearing

The first court appearance is a master calendar hearing. It works something like an arraignment. The judge confirms your identity and address, explains your rights, asks whether you have an attorney, and takes your response to the government’s charges.⁵

At least 10 days must pass between service of the NTA and your initial master calendar hearing so you can find counsel and prepare. You can waive that period by signing the “Request for Prompt Hearing” box on the NTA. Do not sign it without legal advice.

Come prepared to do four things:

Admit or deny each factual allegation, line by line.
Respond to the charges of removability — concede, deny, or decline to take a position while your attorney investigates.
Designate a country of removal, which is where you would be sent if the judge later orders removal.
Identify the relief you intend to apply for, such as asylum, cancellation of removal, or adjustment of status.

If you do not have a lawyer yet, ask the judge to continue the case so you can find one. Do not waive the right to representation.

Ways to Stay: Relief From Removal

The NTA is not the end of the story. Depending on your circumstances, you may qualify for one or more forms of relief.

Cancellation of Removal

There are two tracks. Lawful permanent residents can apply if they have held a green card for at least five years, have lived in the United States continuously for seven years, and have no aggravated felony conviction. Non-permanent residents face a harder standard: 10 years of continuous physical presence, good moral character throughout, no disqualifying convictions, and proof that removal would cause exceptional and extremely unusual hardship to a U.S. citizen or permanent-resident spouse, parent, or child.⁸ The hardship bar is deliberately high; the ordinary pain of family separation does not clear it on its own.

Asylum, Withholding, and CAT

If you fear persecution in your home country based on race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group, you can apply for asylum defensively in removal proceedings. Withholding of removal and protection under the Convention Against Torture are related forms of relief with different standards that your attorney can evaluate.

Voluntary Departure

If a favorable outcome on relief looks unlikely, voluntary departure can be better than a formal removal order. Agreeing to leave at your own expense avoids a removal order on your record, which otherwise carries a reentry bar of up to 10 years and disqualifies you from certain future immigration benefits.⁹ Requested before the final hearing, you can be given up to 120 days to depart. Granted at the end of proceedings, the window shrinks to 60 days and requires a bond. Failing to leave on time triggers a civil penalty of $1,000 to $5,000 and a 10-year bar from applying for cancellation of removal, adjustment of status, and several other benefits.¹⁰

If You Are Detained

If DHS takes you into custody, bond becomes the immediate question. An immigration judge can set a bond of at least $1,500 unless you are subject to mandatory detention. Mandatory detention applies to people charged with certain criminal grounds including aggravated felonies, controlled substance offenses, firearms offenses, and certain security-related charges. If a mandatory detention ground applies, the judge generally cannot release you while proceedings are pending.¹¹

For everyone else, the judge weighs community ties, employment, family in the United States, criminal history, and flight risk. Bond amounts routinely run well above the $1,500 minimum. A denial or an amount you cannot pay can be appealed to the Board of Immigration Appeals.

Why the Contents of Your NTA Matter Later

The NTA also does something quieter with lasting effect. Under the “stop-time rule,” service of the NTA generally cuts off the continuous physical presence clock that non-permanent residents need for cancellation of removal.⁸

Federal law requires the NTA to include specific information, including the time and place of the hearing.¹² In Pereira v. Sessions (2018), the Supreme Court held that an NTA missing the hearing date and location is not a valid notice to appear and does not trigger the stop-time rule.¹³ In Niz-Chavez v. Garland (2021), the Court ruled that a valid NTA must be a single document containing all required information; the government cannot stitch together multiple mailings after the fact.¹⁴

A defective NTA does not end the case, but it can preserve years of continuous presence that decide whether you qualify for cancellation of removal. This is worth flagging to your attorney early.

If You Miss a Hearing or Lose

Failing to appear at any scheduled hearing lets the judge order you removed in absentia.¹⁵ That is a real removal order with real consequences, though the law does allow you to challenge it.

You can move to reopen and rescind the in absentia order on two grounds. If exceptional circumstances caused the absence — serious illness, death of a close family member, or comparable events beyond your control — you have 180 days from the order to file. If you never received proper notice of the hearing, there is no deadline.⁴ Filing either motion automatically stays removal while the judge rules.¹⁶ Proving exceptional circumstances takes real evidence, not just an explanation. The lack-of-notice argument is stronger if the court was mailing to an outdated address, but you still need to show you complied with the address-change rules or had good reason not to.

If the judge denies relief or orders you removed after a hearing, you have the right to appeal to the Board of Immigration Appeals. As of March 2026, the filing deadline for most cases is 10 calendar days from the judge’s decision, a sharp reduction from the previous 30-day window. The 30-day deadline still applies to certain asylum cases where the application was denied on grounds other than the safe-third-country rule, the one-year filing deadline, or a prior denial of asylum.¹⁷ Miss the deadline and you lose the right to appeal. Any issue not raised in the Notice of Appeal (Form EOIR-26) is waived. If you waived appeal at the hearing itself, you cannot file one later. A 10-day window to identify legal errors in the decision and file a proper appeal is one more reason not to face this process alone.

1
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 8 USC 1182 – Inadmissible Aliens
2
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 8 USC 1227 – Deportable Aliens
3
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. DHS Form I-862 – Notice to Appear
4
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 8 USC 1229a – Removal Proceedings
5
Executive Office for Immigration Review. OCIJ Immigration Court Practice Manual – 3.14 Master Calendar Hearing
6
United States Department of Justice. List of Pro Bono Legal Service Providers
7
EOIR Respondent Access. Change of Address Form (EOIR-33/IC)
8
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 8 USC 1229b – Cancellation of Removal; Adjustment of Status
9
U.S. Department of Justice. Information on Voluntary Departure
10
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 8 USC 1229c – Voluntary Departure
11
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 8 USC 1226 – Apprehension and Detention of Aliens
12
GovInfo. 8 USC 1229 – Initiation of Removal Proceedings
13
Oyez. Pereira v. Sessions
14
Supreme Court of the United States. Niz-Chavez v. Garland
15
eCFR. 8 CFR 1208.10 – Failure to Appear at a Scheduled Hearing Before an Immigration Judge
16
United States Department of Justice. Immigration Court Practice Manual – 5.9 Motions to Reopen In Absentia Orders
17
eCFR. 8 CFR 1003.38 – Appeals