You were picked up once, years ago. Or you signed something at a border you did not understand. Or a letter came and you moved before the date on it.
And you have never known, for certain, whether there is an order out there with your name on it.
This page is about how you find out, and about the mistake that makes people think they already did.
The Short Answer
It usually takes two requests, to two different agencies.
Most people send one, to USCIS, and receive a file back. That file is real and it is useful. It is also not where a removal order lives.
An order from an immigration judge sits in the immigration court’s own record, held by a different agency entirely.
Why One Request Is Not Enough
The immigration court system, EOIR, is not part of the Department of Homeland Security. It says so itself, and it does not accept DHS forms for its records.
That has a consequence people learn the expensive way.
Form G-639 is a DHS form. It will not get you the immigration court file. Someone who files it, waits, and receives a stack of documents can reasonably believe they now know their history. They may not.
So a complete picture normally means:
- A request to USCIS, for the immigration file most people call the A-File.
- A separate request to the immigration court’s FOIA service center, for what the court calls the Record of Proceedings.
Different agency. Different request. Different pile of paper.
And Sometimes Four, Not Two
Records about a person are spread across agencies according to who created them.
A records request is not one thing. It can be up to four requests to four agencies, and which ones make sense depends on what you are actually trying to answer.
There is more on that split here: the USCIS file and the immigration court file are two different records.
Why This Matters More Than It Sounds
A removal order that nobody has seen does not stay quiet forever. It changes what is possible, and in some situations it closes a route that a family has been planning around for years.
One example, and it is the one that costs the most. A prior removal order can disqualify someone from the provisional waiver process at 8 C.F.R. § 212.7(e)(4), which is the route many families in this area are counting on.
That is not a reason to avoid looking. It is the reason to look before anyone files anything.
If You Have a Hearing Coming Up
This part is time-sensitive and it is worth acting on rather than reading twice.
The records system runs a faster track for people who already have a scheduled hearing before an immigration judge, shown by the charging document in their case.
If you have papers with a hearing date on them, bring them to the conversation and say so at the beginning. That single fact changes how the request gets made.
What We Will Not Tell You
We will not tell you what your record says. No page can, and anyone guessing at it is not being careful with you.
We will not tell you that requesting it is risk-free for you specifically. That question depends on your history, and it belongs in a conversation: does requesting your file create risk.
And we will not tell you that a records request shows whether you qualify for something. It shows what the record says. Whether that record contains a path is a separate determination.
If your case is weak, you hear it from us first. If there is risk, you know before anything is filed. If there is a path, you get a plan built around it.
Sometimes the file confirms the thing a person has feared for twenty years. Even then, knowing changes what a family can plan for. Guessing does not.
Find Out What Is Actually in Your History
You do not have to file anything today. The first step is a conversation about which requests make sense in your situation.
Talk it through with a bilingual team member. Bring anything you kept from back then, including papers you never understood.
Law Office of Gilda McDowell. Serving families across West Texas and eastern New Mexico.
This page explains how the records process works. It is not legal advice about your situation, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. If you have a hearing date pending, speak with an attorney promptly. Everything here was verified against the primary sources on August 28, 2026.