On June 4, 2026, the Board of Immigration Appeals (the Board) issued a decision in Matter of J-O-A-, a case discussing “particular serious crime” and its impact on eligibility for withholding of removal. It also discussed eligibility for Convention Against Torture relief. The Board serves chiefly as the administrative appeals forum for removal cases from immigration courts. It issues 45,000 decisions per year.  A handful are published. In 2025 it published 33 decisions. Published cases explain ambiguities and gaps in…

As I have written about earlier, the Board of Immigration Appeals is issuing precedent decisions by the boatload all facilitating quicker removals of non-citizens. In the first year of President Trump’s reign, 2025, the BIA issued 65 precedent decisions. So far, in the first five months of 2026, the Board has issued 33 precedent opinions. In 2023 and 2024, the last two Biden years, the Board issued 13 and 14 decisions, respectively. Few of the Trump-era decisions commend themselves for…

Recent Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) decisions give the impression DOGE must have fired all the BIA’s clerks and editors. On March 12, 2026, the BIA published a decision in Matter of Z-N-L-. The case is an appeal in a custody determination hearing, which as the name suggests, is an immigration judge determining whether a person should remain detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement or can be released, most often with the posting of a bond to guarantee the non-citizen’s…

A recent New York Times story discussed a Tennessee non-citizen reporter who was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Commenting on the arrest, according to the New York Times: In a written statement, a spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement said on Friday that Ms. Rodriguez had overstayed her tourist visa “and currently has no lawful immigration status.” Ms. Rodriguez is being trickery here. The trick goes to the heart of the fact that is the heart of much of…