When Three Doors Close
In the first week of March 2026, the landscape of U.S. immigration law shifted fundamentally. On March 4, the Supreme Court issued a unanimous ruling against an asylum applicant in Urias-Orellana v. Bondi, and on March 9, a new rule takes effect that effectively guts the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) appeal process. On top of this, Administrative Closure has been banned outright — meaning that three doors to relief in immigration court are closing all at once.
Each change alone would be expected to have significant ripple effects, but with all three converging at once, the paths to judicial relief for immigrants are narrowing to an unprecedented degree. The Supreme Court has instructed courts to defer more broadly to the judgment of immigration authorities, the BIA can now dismiss most appeals without a hearing, and immigration judges have even lost the authority to temporarily hold cases in abeyance. The opportunities to correct errors in immigration court are being systematically curtailed.
The Supreme Court's Standard, and a Narrowing Door
"The law is not a shield, but a sword. The question is who wields that sword. — Bryan Stevenson"
On March 4, the Supreme Court issued a 9-0 unanimous decision in Urias-Orellana v. Bondi. Written by Justice Jackson, the core holding is that federal courts of appeals must apply the "substantial evidence" standard when reviewing the Board of Immigration Appeals' (BIA) denial of asylum. Under this standard, as long as the BIA's factual findings are supported by reasonable grounds, a federal court cannot overturn the existing decision even if it might reach a different conclusion itself.
Urias-Orellana, a native of El Salvador, entered the United States in 2021 with his wife, Sayra Gamez-Mejia, and their minor child, and applied for asylum. He testified that since 2016 he had been targeted by a hired killer (sicario) in his home country, that two of his half-brothers had been shot, and that he had received threats that his entire family would be killed. He moved residences several times within El Salvador, but was tracked down each time, and eventually came to the United States. Both the immigration judge and the BIA, however, found that these threats did not amount to "persecution" as defined under INA § 101(a)(42). The First Circuit Court of Appeals agreed, but because the circuit courts were divided on the standard of review to apply, the Supreme Court took up the case to establish a uniform standard.
Justice Jackson wrote, in substance, that even accepting all of the applicant's claims as true, the evidence was not so overwhelming that any reasonable factfinder would be compelled to find a fear of persecution. The legal foundation for this decision is the 1992 precedent INS v. Elias-Zacarias. The Court held that Congress, in subsequently amending the INA, did not abandon the Elias-Zacarias standard of review but rather codified it.
The legal definition of persecution itself remains a pure question of law subject to de novo review. But whether specific facts satisfy that definition is now given broad deference to the judgment of immigration authorities. Once an immigration judge or the BIA denies asylum, it has become far harder to overturn that decision in federal court, and the finding made at the first hearing is now more likely to become, in effect, the final word. Because the opinion was written by Justice Jackson, generally regarded as a member of the Court's liberal wing, and because it was a unanimous decision spanning both conservative and liberal justices, this legal standard is unlikely to change going forward.
The Threshold for Appeal Becomes a Fortress Wall
"Justice delayed is justice denied. — William Gladstone"
An even more direct and far-reaching change than the Supreme Court's decision is the Executive Office for Immigration Review's (EOIR) Interim Final Rule, published in the Federal Register on February 6 and taking effect on March 9. Issued without going through the customary notice-and-comment process, this rule fundamentally redesigns the BIA appeal process from the ground up.
The most immediate change is the shortened appeal deadline. The filing deadline for an appeal, formerly 30 days, has been cut to 10 days. A person who receives a removal order from an immigration judge must now come up with the $1,030 fee, retain an attorney, and prepare the appeal documents — all within ten days. Accomplishing all of this in ten days is far from easy for someone who is detained, who is not a native English speaker, and who must navigate immigration court procedure. Given that a substantial share of people who receive removal orders in immigration court proceed without an attorney, a ten-day deadline effectively signals to many of them to give up on appealing.
A more fundamental change, meanwhile, is that the very nature of appellate review has been altered. Under the new rule, the default disposition for every appeal filed with the BIA is summary dismissal. A substantive appellate review takes place only if a majority of the BIA's 15 permanent members votes, sitting en banc, to hear the case on the merits. If that vote does not happen, the appeal is automatically dismissed within 15 days of filing. This means the entire process — from the immigration judge's decision to BIA dismissal — can conclude in as little as 25 days. Previously, the BIA's default practice was to review every filed appeal on the merits; this rule reverses that principle entirely.
The Department of Justice has cited backlog as the justification for this rule, noting that the number of pending appeals grew from roughly 37,000 in 2015 to more than 200,000 by the end of 2025. The backlog is indeed serious, but skipping appellate review itself as the solution is no different from discharging patients without examination to clear a waiting list. Even in cases where merits review is permitted, both sides must now submit briefs simultaneously within 20 days, and reply briefs may not be filed unless the BIA specifically requests one. Both the submission of new evidence and remand for voluntary departure have been prohibited as well.
A Court Without Reprieve
"Justice without mercy is nothing but cruelty, and mercy without justice is the mother of dissolution. — Thomas Aquinas"
If the new rule narrowed the appeals process, the ban on Administrative Closure removes the flexibility of immigration court itself.
Administrative Closure is a case-management tool that lets an immigration judge or the BIA temporarily remove a case from the active hearing calendar. It has been used for people who have filed a family-based green card petition but are waiting on a priority date, people with a separate application pending before USCIS, or cases where a related bill is under discussion in Congress and the outcome needs to be watched. Because the case is not terminated but merely held in abeyance, it neither confers immigration status nor exempts anyone from removal. Rather, it was a mechanism that bought time for the parties involved and prevented someone with a realistic prospect of a green card approval from receiving a removal order while waiting on that outcome.
This mechanism has risen and fallen with the political direction of successive administrations. In 2018, Attorney General Sessions sharply restricted administrative closure through Matter of Castro-Tum, and in 2021, Attorney General Garland restored the authority of immigration judges and the BIA to administratively close cases in Matter of Cruz-Valdez. This EOIR Interim Final Rule now explicitly prohibits the power to administratively close cases, apart from extremely limited exceptions, characterizing it as a "de facto amnesty." In a recent decision (29 I&N Dec. 476), the BIA cited a case that had been administratively closed for 13 years as an example, holding that such a lengthy hold could not be considered "temporary" or a "reasonably brief period."
The reach of this ban is broad. Tens of thousands of cases currently in administratively closed status could be placed back on the active hearing calendar, and people waiting on a visa or with another application pending will no longer be able to have their removal proceedings held in abeyance. Even someone waiting on a priority date for a spouse-sponsored green card can no longer have their case held by the immigration judge — a decision must be issued. With the immigration courts already carrying a backlog of more than 3.4 million pending cases, adding in cases released from administrative closure will only deepen the backlog further, and immigration judges will find themselves under pressure to issue rapid decisions without the room to consider the individual context of each case.
Pushback Outside the Courtroom, and the Paths That Remain
"Rights are not given — they are defended. — Frederick Douglass"
Legal pushback against these changes has already begun. On February 26, nonprofit legal-aid organizations including the Amica Center for Immigrant Rights, Brooklyn Defender Services, the Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project, HIAS, and the National Immigrant Justice Center filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, seeking a preliminary injunction against the EOIR Interim Final Rule before it takes effect. They argue that the rule violates the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) by being issued without prior notice and comment, that it is based on inaccurate data, and that it effectively strips away the right to administrative review and the right to counsel guaranteed under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA).
The New York City Bar Association has also submitted a formal comment opposing the rule, and the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) has likewise voiced its opposition. The shared concern across the legal community is that as the BIA shifts from a body of mandatory review to one of discretionary review, the right to appeal becomes effectively hollow. Immigration court is not part of the federal court system; it is an administrative court under the Department of Justice. If BIA appellate review is neutered, the result is the elimination of the only internal check within the executive branch on an immigration judge's decision.
The outcome of the litigation is not yet known. A preliminary injunction may or may not be issued before the March 9 effective date. Because the Supreme Court's Urias-Orellana decision was a unanimous 9-0 ruling, there is realistically no judicial path to overturning it. Even if a federal court puts the brakes on the BIA rule, the change in the standard of judicial review brought about by the Supreme Court decision remains in place.
When all three changes operate together, they complete a single structure — one in which the immigration judge's decision becomes, in effect, the final and only decision. There is no more buying time through administrative closure; an appeal is summarily dismissed unless a majority of the 15 members agree to hear it; and even if a case reaches federal court, the substantial evidence standard makes it extremely difficult to overturn the existing finding. Within the due-process framework of immigration court, every safeguard that comes after the immigration judge is being hollowed out.
Closing
For those currently going through immigration proceedings, what these changes mean is clear. The weight carried by the first hearing has grown incomparably larger than before. Because the decision made before the immigration judge can, in effect, become the only decision, every piece of available evidence, expert declaration, country-conditions report, and legal argument must be fully assembled before that first hearing. In an asylum case, this means gathering concrete evidence of persecution without gaps; in a cancellation-of-removal defense, it means systematically organizing the grounds for discretionary relief.
The fact that the appeal deadline has shrunk to ten days demands a change in procedural strategy itself. To be able to respond the instant the immigration judge's decision is issued, one must keep the possibility of an appeal in mind well before the decision comes down, and prepare in advance by retaining counsel and setting aside the filing fee. There is no room, within ten days, to start everything from scratch.
As the law changes and procedures narrow, the most realistic preparation is to strengthen the completeness of one's documentation — assembling evidence without gaps, organizing legal arguments in advance, and mapping out a response strategy for an unfavorable decision before it happens. Three doors are closing, but not everything has closed completely. The D.C. federal court's ruling on the preliminary injunction is still pending, and depending on the specific facts of an individual case, room for relief still exists. What must fundamentally change, however, is the level of preparation required to obtain that relief.
Disclaimer: This column is provided for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice for any specific case. For matters concerning your individual immigration situation, please consult an immigration attorney.
Law Office of Jin D. Cho, P.C.
NEW YORK OFFICE (Flushing) 35-24 154th Street, Flushing, NY 11354
(T) 718-353-2699 (F) 718-353-8132
NEW JERSEY OFFICE 560 Sylvan Avenue, 3Fl., Englewood Cliffs, NJ 07632
(T) 201-449-0009