Definition (English):—
Definition (Spanish):—
Comments:It would appear (RAE, entre otros) that a 'juzgado' refers to an adjudicatory body consisting of a single judicial officer who hears cases at the first-instance level. A 'tribunal' or a 'corte', however, generally refer to multi-judge panels, or at least, second-instance level adjudicatory bodies. Therefore, we should be referring to Immigration Court at least as a 'corte' or 'tribunal'. However, the EOIR is not, strictly speaking, a court; the IJs are not judges, after all. The EOIR is a body which conducts administrative hearings, and the bulk of the law by and through which it makes its decisions is administrative law. In fact, the EOIR is, in many ways, closest to what in some Hispanic countries (Uruguay, Mexico, Spain) is known as the Tribunal de lo Contencioso-Administrativo, which is a jurisdiction that in general hears cases de novo arising from disputes with the public institutions of the country. Now, the EOIR hears many cases on what you could consider a first instance basis, pursuant to the issuance of an NTA. This fits with the viewpoint of the contencioso-administrativo; the Respondent sought or is seeking admission to the country, in essence they were denied this service, and as a result there is a dispute which needs to be settled. There are, of course, many cases that the EOIR hears which are referred or transferred from USCIS, frequently with an initial denial from USCIS. This fits even more closely with the traditional profile of the contencioso-administrativo, in the sense that the individual requested a service from the public administration (asylum, adjustment of status, etc.), and this service was not provided to them -- or, the result of that service was not what they desired -- and now they seek a remedy through a body designed to hear such disputes. Based on this, the recommendation is that the EOIR be referred to not as a 'corte', but rather as a 'tribunal', in accordance with the widespread usage of this term to denote the contencioso-administrativo adjudicatory bodies in multiple countries.