Matter of Laparra-Deleon: A Later Hearing Notice Could Support an In Absentia Order

A defective first notice did not undo the later hearing notice

In Matter of Laparra-Deleon, 29 I&N Dec. 389 (BIA 2026), the Board of Immigration Appeals reinstated an in absentia removal decision after the Supreme Court rejected the notice theory on which the First Circuit had ordered a remand. The respondent’s original Notice to Appear lacked the hearing date and time. But he later received a statutorily compliant notice identifying the hearing he missed. The Board held that the defect in the first document did not require rescission of the resulting removal order.

The distinction matters: A missing date in an NTA and a failure to receive the notice of the missed hearing are different problems. This decision resolves the former on a record establishing proper later notice. It does not establish that every later notice was served correctly or that every motion to reopen must fail.

The Board decided the case on December 17, 2025. Attorney General Order No. 6581-2026 designated it as precedent on January 9, 2026. The complete official decision supplies the procedural history and disposition.

How the case reached the Board a second time

The initial NTA listed the date and time as to be set. On March 19, 2010, the respondent was properly served with a notice scheduling an April 8, 2010 hearing at 1:30 p.m. in Boston. He did not appear and was ordered removed in absentia—meaning in his absence. The Board later rejected motions seeking termination for lack of jurisdiction and reopening and rescission for insufficient notice. Laparra-Deleon, pages 389–90.

In 2022, the First Circuit agreed with the Board’s jurisdictional ruling but rejected its statutory-notice analysis. The court reasoned that a later notice could not supply a new hearing time under INA section 239(a)(2) when the initial NTA had never supplied one. The remand therefore concerned the notice basis for the in absentia order, rather than a wholesale rejection of the immigration court’s authority.

DHS then moved to reinstate the Board’s earlier decision, Matter of Laparra, 28 I&N Dec. 425 (BIA 2022), after the Supreme Court decided Campos-Chaves v. Garland, 602 U.S. 447 (2024). The respondent did not respond to that reinstatement motion. That procedural sequence explains why the Board was revisiting a case that had already been before a federal court.

Why the intervening Supreme Court decision controlled

As the Board explained, Campos-Chaves held that a respondent whose NTA lacks the date or time may still be ordered removed in absentia after receiving a compliant hearing notice under INA section 239(a)(2) and then missing that hearing. The later notice can provide a new time or place for purposes of that statute. The Board discussed that reasoning at page 390, citing the Supreme Court’s analysis at pages 461–64.

The First Circuit’s judgment in this particular case had not itself been directly vacated by the Supreme Court. The Board nevertheless concluded that the First Circuit’s reasoning could not be reconciled with the intervening Supreme Court decision. It also noted the connection to the Ninth Circuit’s Singh decision, which the Supreme Court had directly addressed. The Board therefore treated the First Circuit’s contrary notice rationale as effectively overruled.

This is a statutory-notice holding for in absentia removal and rescission. It should not be converted into a statement that an incomplete NTA satisfies every requirement in every immigration context. Different statutory questions must be analyzed under the authority governing those questions.

The exact disposition and stated circuit reach

The Board granted DHS’s reinstatement motion, reinstated Matter of Laparra, and denied the motion to reopen and rescind the removal order. It did not merely return the case for another evidentiary hearing. The operative orders appear at page 391.

The decision expressly reinstates Laparra in the First Circuit and describes it as good law in circuits without contrary precedent. That stated scope should accompany the holding. For a California proceeding, counsel must examine the Supreme Court’s ruling and governing Ninth Circuit authority rather than infer a nationwide answer from the Board’s designation alone.

What the decision leaves open

Footnote 3 preserves an important distinction. Before the First Circuit, the government had argued that actual notice made any written-notice error harmless. The Board did not decide that alternative argument because it reinstated its finding of statutorily compliant written notice. The case therefore should not be cited as holding that informal awareness always substitutes for the required written notice.

A useful review of another case should identify the exact hearing missed, every notice setting or resetting it, the address used, service evidence, and what the prior motion actually alleged. A person who disputes receiving the operative notice presents a different factual question from someone who received it but relies solely on the defective first NTA. The removal order and prior motion rulings also show which issues have already been decided.

This analysis concerns the decision’s notice holding. A review of removal-defense options must separately evaluate the available reopening ground, applicable filing requirements, procedural history, and controlling court law. The existence of an NTA defect alone does not answer those questions.