Concerning late ACL 2026 desk rejections

Dear All Authors,

As the EMNLP 2026 commitment date draws closer, we would like to clarify our approach on handling papers that were desk rejected from ACL 2026 due to hallucinated references at the Camera Ready submission stage. According to this statement, “it has been decided in a meeting with the ACL executive that affected papers must go through the normal resubmission process”.

Therefore, your submission in the ARR January 2026 cycle (or an earlier cycle) that was committed to ACL 2026 has been desk rejected so that we can keep the desk rejection decision made by ACL 2026 consistent across the submission and the commitment sites. If you have resubmitted the paper in the ARR May 2026 cycle, the resubmission is not affected.

In addition, we would like to convey the following important message on behalf of the EMNLP 2026 Program Committee. The EMNLP 2026 Program Committee does not know the identities of papers that were desk rejected by the ACL 2026 Program Committee. Therefore, to ensure fairness and minimize bias, if you have resubmitted your paper in the May cycle and will commit the submission to EMNLP 2026, you should not mention that your paper was desk rejected due to the ACL 2026 hallucinated references statement in your EMNLP 2026 commitment message. Such declarations will result in desk rejections from the EMNLP 2026 commitment site, without exception.

The EMNLP 2026 Program Committee would like to thank you for your cooperation to help maintain the integrity of the EMNLP 2026 program, and your patience as we navigate through a cycle with unprecedented challenges.

Sincerely yours,
ARR Editors