On June 26, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a 5-4 split opinion in Riley v. Bondi, an important immigration case about when someone must appeal a final administrative removal order issued by a DHS officer. The Supreme Court ruled that a person must file a federal court appeal within 30 days of being issued a DHS final administrative removal order, even if they are still pursuing protection from removal under the Convention Against Torture (CAT).
The case involves Pierre Riley, a Jamaican national who has lived in the United States for decades. Following a criminal conviction, he was ordered removed by a DHS officer, and he expressed fear that he would be tortured if he was forced to return to Jamaica.
An immigration judge agreed and said that Riley’s deportation should be deferred under CAT, but the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) reversed that decision. After Riley appealed the reversal, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit dismissed his case, stating that it didn’t have jurisdiction to hear the appeal because it was filed outside the 30-day deadline, even though the BIA had not made a final decision about whether his removal should be deferred due to his fear of torture until 16 months after DHS first issued the removal order.
The Supreme Court case involved two main issues: whether the statute, 8 U.S.C. § 1252(b)(1), that requires someone to file an appeal within 30 days is a hard rule that courts must always follow or if it’s more like a recommended deadline that could be excused or overlooked if no one objects and whether someone can appeal a decision from the BIA—specifically in a “withholding-only” proceeding (a limited type of case where a person isn’t asking to stay permanently, just not to be sent back to a country where they would be tortured)—by filing that appeal within 30 days of when the BIA made its decision.
On the first question, the Court ruled that federal courts are allowed to review these cases. But on the second question, the Court ruled that a federal court challenge must be filed within 30 days of the original administrative removal order, even if a Convention Against Torture claim is before the BIA or an immigration judge.
Finally, in a string of recent cases, the Supreme Court had made clear that if Congress wants to impose a hard rule regarding filing deadlines, Congress must clearly state that in the law. The Tahirih Justice Center and the other advocates agree with this way of thinking. Tahirih believes that since Congress did not explicitly state that the 30-day filing deadline was a rule with zero flexibility, Mr. Riley should be allowed to have his appeal heard by the Fourth Circuit. While Tahirih welcomes the Court’s ruling that federal courts do have authority to hear challenges to administrative removal orders, Tahirih is disappointed that the Court ruled that the 30-day clock for filing a federal appeal begins at the time DHS issues the removal order, rather than at the conclusion of CAT proceedings.
In January 2025, the Tahirih Justice Center and other advocates submitted an amicus brief arguing that a decision like the one the Supreme Court made in this case could have a profound impact on immigrants – including survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, and other forms of gender-based violence – for two reasons:
- From our experience helping noncitizens in deportation cases, the rule used by the Fourth Circuit made the appeals process unnecessarily confusing. It forced people to file multiple, overlapping legal documents, made it harder for them and their lawyers to understand the process, and caused many to miss their chance to ask a federal court to review their case—simply because they didn’t realize they had already missed the deadline.The justices who wrote the dissent in the Supreme Court decision agreed, stating, “One should not be required to appeal an order before it exists.” Justice Sotomayor wrote that the majority’s opinion rendered the statute in question “incoherent” and that it required Mr. Riley to appeal the removal order “one year and three months before the [BIA] entered it.”
- Congress already decided to get rid of the confusing system where different courts handled different parts of a deportation case. In 2005, through the REAL ID Act, Congress made it clear that only appeals courts—not district courts—should review final deportation orders. They said the old system led to delays, wasted resources, and inconsistent decisions, which is exactly what they were trying to fix back with the REAL ID Act.But the Fourth Circuit’s decision brought those same problems back. It splits up the review process again and forces people to appeal before their immigration case is even finished.
