Medina Madrid: A 13-Year Administrative Closure, a Planned I-601A Waiver and a Removal Case Sent Back to Court

Terisita Medina Madrid asked an immigration judge for cancellation of removal in 2007. No judge ever ruled on that application. In January 2013, at the request of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the court set her removal case aside as a matter of prosecutorial discretion, meaning the government’s choice not to press a case for the time being. She did not object, and the case sat for more than a decade.

Her life moved on while the file stood still. She married a lawful permanent resident in 2019. Her spouse’s family petition was approved in 2024. She planned to seek a waiver and then obtain her green card through a U.S. consulate abroad. In June 2025, DHS asked to bring the removal case back. An immigration judge refused because she was actively pursuing that plan.

Anyone whose case was closed years ago, and who has since built a family-based plan, faces her question: Does the plan keep the case closed? On her record, the Board of Immigration Appeals said no. The decision is Matter of Terisita Medina Madrid, 29 I&N Dec. 514, Interim Decision #4173 (BIA Mar. 13, 2026). A three-member panel, in an opinion by Appellate Immigration Judge Gallow, sustained DHS’s appeal, vacated (set aside) the judge’s October 6, 2025 decision, put the case back on the active calendar and sent it to the Immigration Court. The Board did not order her removed. It said it expressed “no opinion on the ultimate outcome of these proceedings.”

The decision matters for two reasons beyond its result. It told judges to count the years between a closure and a later filing, when a person relies on that filing to keep the case closed, even if the closure had nothing to do with it. And it said a person can pursue this waiver without a closed case, a point that needs close reading against the waiver regulation. The closure regulation the Board applied was then vacated by a federal court on June 22, 2026.

DHS asked for the pause; the family plan came later

Medina Madrid, a native and citizen of Mexico, was placed in removal proceedings in 2004. DHS charged her with being present in the United States without having been admitted or paroled. In 2007, she applied for cancellation of removal for certain nonpermanent residents, a form of relief an immigration judge can grant to long-term residents who meet strict requirements, including exceptional and extremely unusual hardship to a citizen or permanent-resident spouse, parent or child.

On January 24, 2013, the judge granted DHS’s unopposed motion for administrative closure. Administrative closure takes a case off the court’s active calendar without deciding it. It gives no immigration status. Recalendaring, the term at the center of this appeal, puts the case back on the calendar.

Six years after the closure, she married a lawful permanent resident. Her spouse filed a Form I-130, the petition that establishes a family relationship for immigration purposes, on October 1, 2019. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) approved it on November 14, 2024, more than five years later.

DHS moved to recalendar on June 13, 2025. She opposed the motion because she had recently filed a Form I-824, which asks USCIS to take a further step on an approved petition, in preparation for filing a Form I-601A. That form seeks a provisional unlawful presence waiver. A person who has lived here unlawfully for a year or more and then leaves faces a 10-year bar on returning, which can be waived on proof of extreme hardship to a citizen or permanent-resident spouse or parent. The I-601A lets USCIS decide that waiver before the person leaves. Under 8 C.F.R. § 212.7(e), an approved waiver takes effect only after the person departs, attends the visa interview and is found otherwise eligible. Our guide to I-601A qualifying relatives explains that hardship requirement.

The judge denied DHS’s motion, the Board reports, “because the respondent is actively pursuing collateral relief.” Collateral relief means a benefit sought from another agency, outside the removal case. That was the judge’s reason. The opinion does not report the reasons DHS gave, and it describes her position as opposing recalendaring to allow more time to seek the waiver. She appeared before the Board without a lawyer.

The test the Board applied

DHS brought an interlocutory appeal, an appeal taken before the removal case is finished. The Board usually declines those. It took this one “to ensure the proper application of the regulations governing the recalendaring of administratively closed cases.” It decided the question de novo, meaning afresh and without deferring to the judge’s exercise of discretion.

The test came from two places. The first was 8 C.F.R. § 1003.18(c), a Justice Department regulation adopted in 2024. As applied in March 2026, it required a judge facing an opposed recalendaring motion to weigh the totality of the circumstances, including listed factors such as the time since closure, the basis for opposition and the likelihood of success on the outside application. The second was Board precedent. Matter of B-N-K-, 29 I&N Dec. 96 (BIA 2025), made “persuasive reasons for a case to proceed and be resolved on the merits” the primary consideration, a phrase it defined in a footnote as “initial and important but not overriding.”

The Board repeated B-N-K-’s description of the tool: “It is not a form of relief from removal, does not provide an alien with any immigration status, and is not intended to be used to delay proceedings indefinitely.” A footnote added, quoting an earlier decision, that “serious questions have been raised about the constitutionality of administrative closure.” The Board did not resolve those questions here.

The clock ran from the closure

The opinion’s new rule fills a gap in the regulation. The regulation made the time between closure and filing relevant when a case was closed to allow the person to file something. Medina Madrid’s case had been closed for a different reason. The Board extended the same idea: When a case is closed for reasons unrelated to a desire to seek collateral relief, “but eligibility for collateral relief is argued as a basis for continued administrative closure, we deem it equally important to consider the passage of time between the date of administrative closure and the filing of the application for collateral relief. Where this exceeds a temporary period, continued administrative closure is heavily disfavored.”

A reader might expect DHS’s role in requesting the closure to count against DHS. The opinion gives it no such weight. It treats the closure’s origin as the reason to examine the passage of time. The Board noted that the case had been closed for more than 13 years, that she did not marry until six years in and that she had been seeking collateral relief “for the past 7 years.” By our arithmetic, the I-130 came about six years and eight months after the closure, and the waiver application had not been filed at all.

The Board attached no number to “temporary” in that sentence. For its conclusion that further closure was too long, it cited Matter of Ibarra-Vega, 29 I&N Dec. 476, 482 (BIA 2026), describing that decision as holding that closure for nearly 13 years “exceeds common-sense meanings of a temporary or reasonably short period.” A numeric yardstick, six months, came from another part of the opinion.

An unfiled waiver gave the judge little to weigh

The judge had relied on her active pursuit of the waiver. The Board looked at what had actually been filed. The likelihood that she would obtain the waiver was “speculative, as she has yet to file an application with USCIS,” and “[h]er desire to continue delaying removal proceedings based on her speculative eligibility to pursue a provisional unlawful presence waiver sometime in the future is not a persuasive reason against recalendaring.” An approved petition and a preparatory I-824 did not change that assessment.

The Board then added a sentence about what would have happened had she filed. Even then, it said, the average processing time was approximately 28 months, a USCIS figure the Board checked on March 11, 2026. It paired that figure with Ibarra-Vega, 29 I&N Dec. at 481, which had said that “absent unique circumstances specific to an individual case, administrative closure in excess of 6 months is presumptively unreasonable.”

She had not filed, so that sentence was not needed to resolve her appeal. It still signals how the Board views the timing of this waiver, and DHS can be expected to cite it. Processing times also change, so a person relying on or answering this point should check the current figure.

The Board’s alternative route to the waiver

The Board’s second line of reasoning was that closure made no difference to her removal case. The Board relied on B-N-K-, which it summarized as “concluding that a pending application for a collateral benefit that does not impact the outcome of removal proceedings generally will not warrant administrative closure.” Even with a waiver, she “would have to depart the United States to pursue consular processing,” meaning a visa application at a U.S. consulate abroad, because she had not been admitted or paroled, meaning lawfully let in by an immigration officer, and so could not adjust status, the process of getting a green card without leaving, under 8 U.S.C. § 1255(a). A footnote adds that she had not shown eligibility under § 1255(i), an older exception for certain people with petitions or labor applications filed by April 30, 2001.

The Board then said a final removal order “does not prevent the respondent from filing for a provisional unlawful presence waiver if she has filed an application seeking consent to reapply for admission and USCIS has approved that application,” citing 8 C.F.R. § 212.7(e)(4)(iv). It concluded that “these removal proceedings do not need to be administratively closed for the respondent to apply for a provisional unlawful presence waiver.” Consent to reapply is requested on Form I-212. She had no final order, so this passage described a path she might take and was not a ruling on any filing.

The paragraph just before the one the Board cited is the important companion, and the opinion does not discuss it. Under 8 C.F.R. § 212.7(e)(4)(iii), a person in removal proceedings with no final order is ineligible for this waiver “unless the removal proceedings are administratively closed and have not been recalendared at the time of filing the application for a provisional unlawful presence waiver.” As we read the two paragraphs together, a person cannot file the I-601A while the case remains on the active calendar and no final order has been entered. If it ends in a final removal order, USCIS must first grant consent to reapply.

That route carries real costs, which are our observation and not the Board’s. A removal order brings its own bar on return under 8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(9)(A), which is why consent to reapply is required. The waiver regulation says a pending or approved waiver “does not constitute a grant of a lawful immigration status or a period of stay,” and an applicant must be present in the United States when filing. A person who is removed before filing loses this path. Our analysis of Torres-Garcia explains why consent to reapply is not permission to return unlawfully.

What the Board ordered and what remains open

The Board concluded that “further administrative closure exceeds all reasonable interpretations of a temporary period.” Because her cancellation application had never been decided, the closure “has operated, in effect, as amnesty, allowing an otherwise removable alien to live indefinitely in the United States under a legally fictitious status.” For the principle that the Board and immigration judges cannot grant relief the statute and regulations do not provide, the Board cited Galo-Garcia v. INS, 86 F.3d 916, 918 (9th Cir. 1996), and Matter of Medina, 19 I&N Dec. 734, 746 (BIA 1988). We describe those two decisions only as the Board summarizes them.

The stated rule is tied to its facts: “Where, as here, the respondent’s removal proceedings have been administratively closed for over 13 years, continued administrative closure is not warranted based on the respondent’s intention to apply for a provisional unlawful presence waiver with USCIS.” The two facts doing the work are the length of the closure and the fact that she had only an intention to apply.

Sending the case back reopens the removal case itself. The judge must now decide it, including the 2007 cancellation application if it remains before the court. The Board said nothing about her eligibility. A permanent-resident spouse is among the relatives the cancellation statute counts, but she would still have to meet its other requirements, and anything filed in 2007 would predate her marriage.

Where this decision sits

Medina Madrid followed three Board precedents from the preceding nine months, each involving a different outside application. B-N-K- (June 2025) concerned Temporary Protected Status (TPS), a temporary protection from removal, and said a pending TPS application “generally will not warrant” closure. Medina Madrid’s summary of that case is broader, covering any collateral benefit that does not affect the outcome of removal proceedings. Matter of Cahuec Tzalam, 29 I&N Dec. 300 (BIA 2025), concerned a petition for special immigrant juvenile classification, a status for certain children under juvenile court protection, supported only by a receipt. Ibarra-Vega (February 2026) concerned a U visa, the status for crime victims who help law enforcement. That case had also been closed at DHS’s request, and the Board said B-N-K-’s “reasonably short period” requirement applied whatever the collateral action, including an “application for an inadmissibility waiver.” Medina Madrid then addressed that kind of waiver directly.

The waiver has a particular history with closure. Matter of Cruz-Valdez, 28 I&N Dec. 326 (A.G. 2021), arose from a respondent who sought closure so he could file an I-601A. The Attorney General quoted the closed-case exception in § 212.7(e)(4)(iii) and, in a footnote, the final-order route the Board relied on here. Cruz-Valdez restored closure authority while rulemaking proceeded, and that rulemaking produced the 2024 regulation.

The Board has already used Medina Madrid in another setting. In Matter of T-A-G-, 29 I&N Dec. 715 (BIA June 23, 2026), it set aside a judge’s order refusing, without considering the merits, DHS’s motion to end asylum applications before a full hearing because I-130 petitions were pending. T-A-G- cited Medina Madrid for the point that a family petition did not affect the outcome of removal proceedings when the respondents could not adjust status in court. It came one day after the vacatur described below and does not discuss it.

What a California reader should know

The Ninth Circuit, which hears appeals from California immigration courts, had already upheld similar reasoning on a different posture. In Ruiz v. Bondi, 163 F.4th 586, 601–02 (9th Cir. 2025), a man married a citizen during his Board appeal. USCIS approved her petition for him, and he sought closure to pursue the waiver. The Board denied closure, citing DHS’s objection and its view that closure was unnecessary. The court acknowledged the § 212.7(e)(4)(iii) limit, found no abuse of discretion, a deferential standard, and pointed to the same final-order route. Medina Madrid does not cite Ruiz.

Two features of Ruiz shape how far it goes. The Board’s dismissal of his appeal made his removal order final, so the alternative route was immediately in view. And the court noted that “Ruiz does not argue that this alternative procedure is unavailable to him.” DHS’s objection there rested on his criminal conduct, including three DUI convictions, and his immigration history. The lesson is practical: A person who contends that the final-order route is unavailable or unworkable needs to say so, with facts, before the agency.

Ruiz also described the “primary consideration” test from Matter of W-Y-U-, 27 I&N Dec. 17 (BIA 2017), as superseded by the 2024 regulation, under which “[n]o single factor is dispositive.” B-N-K-, which Medina Madrid followed, had reasoned that the same test was consistent with that regulation. Ruiz does not mention B-N-K-. That difference arose under a rule that has since been vacated, and what the vacatur does to W-Y-U- is unresolved. A lawyer writing for a California court should address both points directly.

A closure ruling reaches the Ninth Circuit as part of a petition for review of a final removal order, and the court reviews it for abuse of discretion. Gonzalez-Caraveo v. Sessions, 882 F.3d 885, 890–94 (9th Cir. 2018), held that federal courts may review those decisions and faulted a judge and the Board for refusing to consider a closure request. It described closure as a tool judges “must be able to use, in appropriate circumstances, as part of their delegated authority, independence and discretion,” which grounded it in regulatory authority, while recognizing that DHS “may always move to recalendar the case.” The court still denied the petition, because those petitioners made no argument under the closure factors and had no pending application to support one.

The regulation was vacated on June 22, 2026

Three months after Medina Madrid, the regulation it applied lost its force. In Texas v. Department of Justice, No. 7:26-CV-00070-O, ECF 5 (N.D. Tex. June 22, 2026), a consent judgment, meaning a judgment entered on the parties’ agreement, vacated the 2024 rule that included § 1003.18(c). The court declared the rule “in excess of statutory authority and contrary to law,” declared that “no statute authorizes immigration judges to indefinitely administratively close or suspend adjudication of a case before them,” and permanently barred the defendants from issuing regulations that let immigration judges close removal cases without reaching the merits “absent an express statutory basis to do so.”

The factor-by-factor analysis in Medina Madrid therefore should be read as what the Board applied in March 2026, not as today’s regulatory list. Other parts of the reasoning rested on Board precedent and on the idea that closure must be temporary. Those precedents have mixed roots: B-N-K- applied the codified factors while drawing on older cases, and Ibarra-Vega tied its six-month presumption to the regulation’s word “temporary.” Their force after the vacatur is open. The judgment does not mention Medina Madrid or Gonzalez-Caraveo, and it does not say what standard governs a motion to recalendar a case that was already closed. That question has to be checked when the motion is filed.

The judgment also bears on the waiver. Section 212.7(e)(4)(iii) is a separate DHS regulation, not named in the judgment, and it still refers to closed cases. A person whose case remains closed should check whether the waiver can be filed before any recalendaring. Under section 212.7(e)(4)(iii), the case must still be closed when the application is filed.

If DHS moves to put your closed case back on the calendar

• Find the closure order and the motion behind it. Note who asked for closure and why. Medina Madrid shows that a case closed for prosecutorial discretion can be measured by the years that followed.
• Build a dated timeline. List the closure, marriage, petition filing and approval, and each step toward a waiver. The Board relied on that sequence.
• Do not leave a waiver as a plan if it can be filed. The regulation requires a case pending with the State Department, with the visa processing fee paid, and the exception for closed cases looks to the time of filing. A filing does not guarantee closure will continue, but the Board called her waiver prospects speculative because none had been filed. Get advice on eligibility first.
• Answer the alternative route directly. If you oppose recalendaring, explain why waiting for a removal order and a Form I-212 is not a real substitute in your case. Ruiz shows what happens when that argument is not made.
• Prepare the removal case itself. An old application may be stale. Update the evidence on presence, moral character and hardship to each qualifying relative, and confirm which relatives now qualify.
• Update your address with the court now. A case dormant for years can return with hearing notices sent to an old address. A missed hearing can produce a removal order. Our guide to changing your address with the immigration court explains the filing.
• Get advice before leaving the country. Departure can trigger the unlawful presence bar, and departure under an outstanding order triggers its own bar.

Later developments

After June 26, 2026, the Northern District of Texas denied a motion by three cities and a legal services organization to join the case and appeal the consent judgment (ECF 23, Aug. 21, 2026), saying that, “[s]etting aside the question of whether recalendaring is a certainty, at most, the direct consequence of the Consent Judgment is that cases that are currently closed may be recalendared.” It then denied a stay, meaning a pause of the judgment (ECF 30, Sept. 2, 2026). The Fifth Circuit denied a stay and refused to reverse the intervention ruling summarily in Texas v. United States, No. 26-10794 (5th Cir. Sept. 29, 2026) (unpublished order). The Supreme Court denied a stay on October 27, 2026, in City of Baltimore v. Texas, No. 26A500. The federal government told the Supreme Court in its October 22 response that the judgment “does not require the recalendaring of cases that are currently administratively closed.” That statement is a litigation position, and it does not stop DHS from filing a motion in an individual case.